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

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Bristoling wrote:

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.

Thanks for the input, I really thought about your suggetsion, but I'm not sure about the Champion: Fortify works only on Melee hit, so it still wouldn't be perma up, free link - hmm, yes ok, if I hadn't have a culling Howa. :)
Jugg's Endurance Charges rely on being hit every 13 seconds, which should be pretty realistic, thus pretty useful, if not OP, tbh OP as fuck... but we would still talk about only 3 Charges, same for Raider's Frenzy Charges - that's why I think that I gonna stick with Occ/Inq.

After minmaxing a bit I result in even slightly more ES (just 50 or so) while losing about 50k Shaper DPS which is ignorable (as long as the number has 7 digits =D). With the already mentioned anti-stun thingy + enfeeble on hit + NO DEGEN Blood Rage, 3.2 will buff the toon a lot in defenses. I'm pretty excited tbh, let's see how hard the new mapbosses gonna hit. I hope about 10.5k ES is enough, otherwise we would have to sacrifce 25% dps for 2k more ES...

Here the battle plan: https://pastebin.com/TM7acdg6

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Lawyne wrote:

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Bristoling wrote:

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.

Thanks for the input, I really thought about your suggetsion, but I'm not sure about the Champion: Fortify works only on Melee hit, so it still wouldn't be perma up, free link - hmm, yes ok, if I hadn't have a culling Howa. :)
Jugg's Endurance Charges rely on being hit every 13 seconds, which should be pretty realistic, thus pretty useful, if not OP, tbh OP as fuck... but we would still talk about only 3 Charges, same for Raider's Frenzy Charges - that's why I think that I gonna stick with Occ/Inq.

After minmaxing a bit I result in even slightly more ES (just 50 or so) while losing about 50k Shaper DPS which is ignorable (as long as the number has 7 digits =D). With the already mentioned anti-stun thingy + enfeeble on hit + NO DEGEN Blood Rage, 3.2 will buff the toon a lot in defenses. I'm pretty excited tbh, let's see how hard the new mapbosses gonna hit. I hope about 10.5k ES is enough, otherwise we would have to sacrifce 25% dps for 2k more ES...

Here the battle plan: https://pastebin.com/TM7acdg6

Damn I forgot about Fortify being melee only, whoops!

To be honest, with the evasion we get almost for free and high eHP pool, the build is pretty tanky. Ofc it cannot be replicated 100% in PoB and it isn't 100% reliable, but getting stun immunity from either sub-ascendancy and taking Arakaali is going to be super strong.

I'll go Raider again, it is relatively easy to get max charges when facing bosses, and I think this is where dps is most important. But, its up to your preference really. Champion is another great dps booster with its 20% increased damage taken, but that's about it, no QoL or defensive boosts. Inquisitor is also good for dps.

Defensively, either Occultist of Jugg. Stun immunity and Arakaali are going to be big. With VP, Vitality Void and Arakaali procced, we are looking at almost 7k ES per second on a 10k ES character. This is massive, and it might be the same kind of feeling as old VP. I'm super excited to try out new options and really struggle to find the best combo. Will probably try out Raider/Jugg or Raider/Occultist, lower ES overall if I want to keep same dps but damn, that leech!

And yeah, Jugg seems OP. Once we are hit, we get 1 EC/s, Immortal Call cooldown is 3s dead, meaning, theoretically, physical immunity, coupled with high evasion, with eHP that life based builds can dream of. Dare I say,

T H I C C O W A

hmm I guess the Intimidated will only occur in bosses' first phase. anyway, we're talking about nuances only, GGG made a pretty good job in balancing obviously, so many options again.

But is the Arakaali recovery rate really applying to our leech?

"50% increased Recovery of Life and Energy Shield if you've stopped taking Damage Over Time Recently", so yes, it does :)

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Lawyne wrote:

hmm I guess the Intimidated will only occur in bosses' first phase.

It is permanent Intimidate, but are bosses simply "respawned" with fixed % hp between phases, or is is technically the same ingame actor/unit/whatever, I have no idea. It could apply or not. Probably something to ask the support...

hi
wanna share my ideas and experience about scion howa so far

1. I used Memory VAult, it gievs me ~4.5k armor(25% mitigation on red maps, free basalt vs trash), it very helps agains high tier maps and abyss monsters(it is not helps vs huge hits but at least u dont get hit from white mob on 1/3 ur ES pool on red maps). It also helps to sustain blood rage.
2. Im usin arctic armour\thunder as 3rd aura... also with enlighten lvl4 we can use 35% aura. best here i think purity of ice with watcehr eye sinergy vs freez or chill or purity of elements with unvuln vs weakness curse. it helps to cap resists adn get more int\es\dmg on gear, aslo u dont need cap resists vs ele weakness maps.
3. Flat ES very important on gear due we have very higth %increase from int
4. Im using pure talent jewel(mentoined in my previous post) for 5% penetration, +25stats and +7 ms.
5. Huge upgrade is vaal regalia with 10+(%int) and (%ES on kill or es regen, aslo help sustain blood rage), with 550+ES regalia u can easy get 10k es without expensive %mana watcher eye, so i value this upgrade higher than jewel
Yes, i hate degen from BR...while u travel from pack to pack u can loose 1/2 of ur es..met elder portal with offscreen kitava jumpers and rip..
6. Not mirror tier rare amulet give me less es, but more damage compare with astramentis

Experience from shaper runs :
lack of proj speed while use slower projectles. u need to be in very melee to shaper for doin damage
lack of AS without blood rage and golem cuz he alwasy fukin die(yes, i dont run bloodrage on shaper, pretty stupid i guess =))
still deathless but not faceroll


Now, after revamp ascendanises i see 2 choises:
1. go templar hierophant(penetration,30% mana as es,+1 totem and charges stuff, 10% reservation for tird aura)
2. or ascendant(occultits\jugg + raider), watcher with %mana as es must have here...

Kind of updated the thread, need to update the passive tree later and proof-read it for any previous references to Hierophant, and expand on ascendancy choices. Will do some more later.

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hi
wanna share my ideas and experience about scion howa so far

1. Memory Vault is certainly a good and budget option, if you can get enough resistances in other places that is.
2. That is a good idea, I have personally experimented (in PoB) with lvl 4 Empower and Enlighten to boost Wrath/Discipline instead, so there are more options then what I written down in the opening post. However, I try to avoid using Watcher's Eye jewels with 2 mods necessary for the build, so I only listed the 3 main ones - Wrath penetration, Discipline ES on hit and Clarity ES. I might update the option section according to your suggestion, but at the start of the league I spend more time theoritizing a good starter more, and usually update my threads like a week into a league :D
3. True :)
4. Definately a decent choice, but personally I think its more of a budget option, a good 4 stat jewel will generally outperform it.
5. For Blood Rage management, I always had it in my weapons/shield on every build. This way you can easily turn it off with simple weapon swap. Or, "gotta go fast" between packs ;p
6. Already included in the guide :)

I wouldn't go Hierophant, I think that while the ES increase is great, the ascendancy severily lacks in dps.
Occultist/Jugg + Raider is also my preferred choice for 3.2 :)

Hello OP,

I see you are quite active around this thread so perhaps you can answer a few questions.
As I am thinking of making a build around HoWA on BSC some dilemmas come to my mind.

1st What do you think about Inq non-crit going pious path? Could use The sorrow of the divine for on-demand ZO (the regen from the pious path will double with ZO so we get 12% ES regen on CG which should be all the time with new revamp) or just pick ZO on the tree.
2nd if inq how would you go about Stun immunity? Is pantheon Enough by itself or you would still need something like boot enchant?
3rd What about using Molten Strike for single target? (even without jewels) with a helm enchant and PB wouldn't it still be more dmg than BF or ST?
4th When would be it be worth replacing 2nd Howa with a shield? If ever.
5th Hybrid Vs CI as Inq with the pious path. Would have a lot of ways to sustain both pools. (LGoH from claw - life, regen - both, Leech - life or ES) I guess the struggle would be the tree pathing.

Any other thoughts about Inq for this build are welcome too.
Thanks.

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1st What do you think about Inq non-crit going pious path? Could use The sorrow of the divine for on-demand ZO (the regen from the pious path will double with ZO so we get 12% ES regen on CG which should be all the time with new revamp) or just pick ZO on the tree.

I would personally go for ZO to get that base regen from Consecrated Ground and not take Vaal Pact.

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2nd if inq how would you go about Stun immunity? Is pantheon Enough by itself or you would still need something like boot enchant?

I would most likely choose Pantheon, that's what I used in 3.1 and it served me well.

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3rd What about using Molten Strike for single target? (even without jewels) with a helm enchant and PB wouldn't it still be more dmg than BF or ST?

Molten Strike is a decent option but I don't like it for this build in particular, especially as Inquisitor for one reason - you need 2 jewels with strength around them. We are already taking one in this build, by Templar, but another one can only be taken by Duelist's Golem's Blood node or on the way to Scion life wheel, pathing to either one isn't that beneficial and demands skipping points on travel/more important nodes elsewhere. Scion can take jewel near her resistance nodes on the bottom, without sacrificing much.

Overall, losing 2 sockets and points traveling to another socket (especially as Inquisitor) will reduce your Molten Strike's dps, compared to builds that path near strength nodes naturally. You also have to account for another flask slot being designated for Dying Sun.
With that being said, Spectral Throw with enchantment gets up to 530%~ damage effectiveness with Point Blank, assuming you position yourself well and hit the target 5 times.
Molten Strike can gets up to 880% damage effectiveness, factoring in Point Blank, target size 3 (most bosses) and 12 projectiles.
Blade Flurry's estimated damage effectiveness is around 380-400% I believe, so yes, Molten Strike, even with some sacrifices (flask slot, points travelling) will come out ahead in pure dps.

However, I already played 2 leagues with Molten Strike character, and wanted to try something new in 3.1, so I chose Spectral Throw. Since then I turned slightly from typical bosskilling builds to more balanced/mapping oriented approach, as Molten Strike is pretty slow, even with Ancestral Call. It doesn't matter if you kill the boss in 3 seconds instead of 6 if it takes you 30-40 seconds more to clear a map.

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4th When would be it be worth replacing 2nd Howa with a shield? If ever.

Almost never. You gain ES but lose a lot of dps. This build can very comfortably do end game content on 8k ES, so going with 10k ES on a budget and losing 25% of your dps isn't going to improve your gameplay. You could skip some ES nodes and take more attack nodes (like in original 3.1 tree), but in the end, you will end up pretty much the same. For ES shield to come out on top, it has to have over 300-350 ES and increased lightning damage. Shields like that cost multiple exalts, while a decent HOWA will cost you 15c.

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5th Hybrid Vs CI as Inq with the pious path. Would have a lot of ways to sustain both pools. (LGoH from claw - life, regen - both, Leech - life or ES) I guess the struggle would be the tree pathing.

Tree pathing both to life or ES nodes would kill your dps :) CI is a lot better choice.

Overall, if you prefer regen based gameplay, and Inquisitor, there is already a guide made for this purpose, called "Titan". It isn't optimized at all for ST, and I have no idea about MS, but you could ask in that thread if you want more information.

My Scion version sacrifices passive regen for higher leech rate and higher dps. Because of that, it is a lot less forgiving but provides better performance if you know what you're doing :)

Hi ,just a quick questions regarding scion ascendancy choices:

Have you considered doing Slayer at all? With all the leech you get the overleech seems like a great defensive tool and QOL. Would also make it much easier to sustain bloodrage?

Afaik Slayer leech doesn't work for ES builds, you lose all stacks as soon as you hit full ES. If it did, there would be a lot more of Scion ES builds around :)