[3.4] Agony Crawler / Spectre Necro with Scorching ray CwC

New 3.4 patch introduced New Vicious minion 'Agony Crawler'. In this moment, how could we Necromaniacs do not try to breed this little cute companion :)

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Simple Mechanic:
Agony Crawler need 40 Virulence stacks. We can get a Virulence stack when we poisoning an enemy. so we have to poisoning as much enemies as quick.


There is a solution. Ball Lightning, the fastest hitting spell ever in this game. it hit targets every 150 milliseconds. Make sure we need Volkuur's Guidance to poisoning enemies with lightning spell.





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Also, we have not so great casting speed. To raise up our Ball Lightning casting rate we'll use Scorching Ray CWC.

Previously, I used Balefire for save 1 gem slot. but I found Advancing Fortress can be much better. now I can reach 5806 Life + 4715 ES with nothing special gear, thanks takeitez :D





Scorching Ray + Cast While Channeling + Posion + Ball Lightening
20% from Volkuur + 20% from Herald of Agony + 60% from Poison Support = 100% chance to poison






Cast While Channeling will cast Ball Lightning every 0.34 sec. With Scorching Ray CWC, I can build up 40 stacks within 1~2 seconds while in mapping. Keep 40 stacks vs single boss fight. Mostly, Scorching Ray has no motion delay. it's much more safer than self casting. It deals fire damage but never hit. so It would never ruin your Elemental Equilibrium. additional -24 Fire penetration is Great bonus. Perfect.




with CwC we can make 5~6 Ball lightnings in single screen.



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Here is Agony Gem link:
Herald of Agony + Minion Damage + Vicious Projectile + Choose one from below.

Slower Projectile: Damage boost for minions.
Faster Projectile: Faster attack/cast speed and rate for minions.
Damage on Full Life: Agony Crawler never be hurts.
Added Fire Damage: For both Agony Crawler and Phantasm
Summon Phantasm on Kill: You'll always lead 10~11 mighty phantasm which triggered by Agony crawler or your own poison DoT. Their toughness is fragile but they will continuously replenish.
*Combustion: Switching Summon Phantasm on kill versus Hard Boss fight, Only if you did link it with Added Fire Damage (Elder Helmet)


Seems like Agony Crawler already has GMP and Picerce Support on his sting.

If you get some Elder Bone Helmet with minion damage or Set this on The Hungry Loop, choose your own 2 combination within our mana pool's capacity.


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Spectre:
Cannibal Fire-eater is perfectly fit with this build and delve contents. it's very aggressive semi-melee Minion with old incinerate skill which can erase proximity shielded monsters. very effective in narrow space such as delve mine.

However, you can still use Solar Guard or Flame Sentinel, any fire based Spectre. (Don't forget about Scorching Ray and -24% Fire pen effect)


*Note: Don't raise Solar Guard in current state till GGG correct thier Delve glitch.
Read this: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2204497/page/1#p15773239

We are aware of this issue and will have a fix coming soon. This is happening because the beam cannon from Solar Guard spectres is causing the dormant Skeletal Beast to aggro early - which is causing this encounter to break.
Posted by AndrewE_GGG



Gem link
for Cannibal Fire-eater:
Raise Spectre + Minion Damage + Spell Echo + Controlled Destruction + (choose two gems from Elemental Focus / Combustion / Faster Projectile: Better AoE / Slower Projectile)





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Other Gems




Gem link on Advancing Fortress:
Whirling Blades(Shield Charge) + Faster Attack + Stone Golem then you'll have stronger stone golem

*Note: In spite of Herald of Agony makes "Minions cannot Taunt Enemies", Still Stone Golem can taunt enemies with his Rolling Charge skill. It's shame. But minion taunt option from Ghastly Eye jewel will not work.


CDWT + Immotal Call + Choose two from below

Enfeeble
Bone Offering: Boost your block rate.
Convocation: For QoL.
Phase Run: To avoid Aggro.
Ball lightening: If only you have Watcher's eye jewel with Discipline ES gain, to get additional ES gain and CoH nearby Enemies.

Desecrate / Flesh Offering / Vaal Discipline / Body swap
(I love Body swap. Fast cast, travel longer, good damage and It consume corpse)


You'll need 1 additional gem socket from Unset ring.




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Other Items

Vis Mortis: Spectre +1
Bones of ullr: Spectre +1, You can replace this to Delve league specific rare with +1 spectre option.
Astramentis: Will set us free from annoying DEX issues. Nobody loves you, DEX.
Bisco's Leash: RAMPAGE
Unending Hunger



Watcher's Eye jewel with Discipline ES gain: Will Triple up your survivability.



Stun preventing enchant on boots would be very useful.



And again, thank you. takeitez. you always enlighten me.
He was mentioned about Elder ring with "Curse Enemies with Poacher's Mark on Hit" Option. like this:


Since we don't use Necromantic Aegis or Animated Guardian, this is the only way to get frenzy charge. It might be upper most DPS boost for our build.


If you suffering from Zealot Oath, Shaped ring with "Life gained for each Enemy hit by your Spells." option could be helpful for keep maintain our heath level. but optional.








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Passive Tree
www.poeurl.com/b5B2

Life-ES hybrid
or you can make your own :)

Passive tree is not a important part. Not at all. Feel free to tweak it for you, everyone.



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EDIT:
Day 3. T15 Red-Elder Deathless, literally Grind him. but I couldn't assure myself it was Agony or Spectre. So I've tried Fenumus' Weave, Most powerful Classic spectre build to measure effectiveness of Herald of Agony.



Drop off full Agony link and Volkuur then adding Animated Guardian link, Aspect of Spider and Haste aura. Even though I got two most powerful auras and 3 frenzy charges generated from Animated guardian, Damage output was significantly lowered. Don't overestimate Auras effectiveness. Tears flow upon my good money.


Normal Atziri
T16 Vaal Temple
Shaper's realm

Uber Elder
Uber Atziri (TV)

All easily cleared. even I run this on silly-laggy potato.


And Believe or Not, we can beat any T15 map without spectre. Try it for yourself.

Hey, nice build idea!
Do you have a gameplay video? I wish I could see how this build works in action, since the volkuur is at 30c and would be a big investment for me now.

Thanks!

This is pretty cool and very inspiring. I decided to do a proof of concept in standard before I set out to level in Delve because I had some ideas of my own. So far I like but I am going to tweak it a bit

The character I used is called Nencho if you want to take a look (Note: It's an occultist)

I am going to try occultist again and use bladeflurry to proc poison instead of scorching ray. It costs 1 extra gem slot but it allows you to use holy relic as well since I think the extra survivability will be welcome. I also intend to go lowlife. I'll write more when I get some levels and I'll see how the build works out x)

Would be awesome if you could provide us some gameplay footage

can The Coming Calamity help to make 6 socket herald of agony?

Tried this build with solar guard spectres, and I feel like the main difference to pure spectre build is that this is stronger vs bosses.

At first, I was testing Scorching Ray with spectres, using Balefire, for boss fights, then I found this article really interesting, so I just swapped my gems to this build.

I go for life regen build (6.5k life with 700/s regen when stationery) with bone offering & Rumi's to reach ~70% block because I get into frontline a lot, face spamming scorching ray. Currently mapping easily at T12. Not sure if it works in higher tier maps yet. I suppose chanelling vs hard boss fights might be a problem.

I like concept of full block rate necromancer too :)
If I were you, I do like to use Advancing Fortress instead of Balefire.




Shield Charge - Faster attack - Golem and then you have fortified Golem.
Scorching Ray link must replace on Gloves. CWDT link set on Shield.

and it's nice pair of Ventor ring :0

Actually, I've been using Advancing Fortress all the way until I want to build something different. Then I decided to go Balefire scorching ray to help fighting bosses, and then I found this post. :D

I'm using this build since the beginning of the leauge (3 days now) since i started late, added the Unending hunger gem for specters and using a ton of ghastly jewels, and victario's charity, my specters are freezing the enemies without hatred and agony is working well and doing quite a job. I used the hybrid life/ES but made some tweeks and changes to the skilltree. Cool build, further into the league it might be really strong

Delve mod: Aul's Uprising Onyx Amulet with Discipline Reserves no Mana; Volkuur's Guidance Zealot Corrupted Gloves with Curse Enemies with Level # Temporal Chains on Hit; Watcher's Eye Prismatic Jewel with Energy Shield gained for each Enemy Hit while affected by Discipline and
You have been phasing while affected by Haste