[3.5][HCSSF] Storm Brand Hierophant | Tanky, mobile, beginner friendly, and fun

Thanks for the guide again. Its my first time playing poe in about a year and HC in like two years.

Its been a breeze and easy to play build.

Also on a side note on one of your recent edits to your first post I think you accidentally put some sections into the gear spoilers that werent supposed to be there.

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FireTako wrote:

Also on a side note on one of your recent edits to your first post I think you accidentally put some sections into the gear spoilers that werent supposed to be there.

I'm glad you're enjoying the build!

Thank you so much for pointing out my fuckup. An ending spoiler tag was missing a [.

I died at 70 today :(

To kitava. I knew I should have looked up a video or something before that fight cause I had never done it. Died to it with like 10% hp left and they did some huge nearly room sized dot on the ground. Oh well.

I really liked this build thanks for the fun.

Don't sweat it, the big fire thing is a classic thing to die to when you're not familiar with the fight. There's an audio cue as he starts casting it that indicates you should go to the far corner that he's breathing fire towards.

Getting to 70 and A10 Kitava is great though! Well done!

Yo, I like your idea of build, I'm following it rn, but on Softcore.
So what flasks and gear would be the best? What stats should I look for on weapons?

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Gravewaker wrote:

Yo, I like your idea of build, I'm following it rn, but on Softcore.
So what flasks and gear would be the best? What stats should I look for on weapons?

There's a gear section that answers that. I'll edit in the flask information now!

Yeah, I've seen gear section, but you wrote there that your example gear is not the best option. I'm not very knowledgeable player so I just wanted to ask what gear would be better than this.

Updated the leveling section

This is a fun build. It's helped me get the farthest I've gotten in hardcore. Rip lvl 77 and 81.



In general: For me the most difficult part is surviving level 30-45. You have to go Arc and brands, and the stationary nature of Arc makes you susceptible to damage and you don't have enough nodes in both damage/sustain to survive every random encounter. Kativa (which is mostly mechanical) is the only real story mode problem.

The biggest weakness I've experienced so far: betrayal encounters. I think I died in an t3 and a t4 map respectively. Temple encounters are risky because of the potential to get hit by a lot of projectiles. Depending on what types of armor you equip, you can get bursted with nowhere to run.

Leveling: Recommend using best uniques to quick clear Act 1, and switch to brand and arc for Act 2. Double quicksilver flasks. Mind over matter asap, then most of the side nodes while going to runebinder. That should work until about lvl 30. From level 30-40 avoid obvious things that can explode/freeze or suddenly burst you. By level 40, you probably have enough damage and health to survive everything. Get 5-10 level advantage before running ascendancy trials (in case you misclick through traps) and before brine's keep (nowhere to run which is standard survive mechanism for this build). Prioritize 'remove bleeding' on flasks to survive about the only mechanic that can kill you while running through content so fast. I personally recommend at least 7 level advantage before going to Kativa. Learn the death breath mechanic. I would grind about 8 different maps and probably just avoid the betrayal encounters, to get some %higher tier.

I'm not very good at this game, but I'd probably switch the bottom of my passive tree to go for unwaivering stance. That would basically solve why I normally die. Probably something like this:

Your mileage with the build will definitely vary. A lot of the issues and recommendations you give are things I definitely struggled with/needed when I was still learning things, but nowadays I reliably hit maps without overlevelling things much if at all. It's mostly a factor of gear, and knowing the content. I'm doing the Syndicate without issue as well, at least post-nerf. As you can see from my RIP videos, most of my deaths are due to stupid mistakes like standing in corpse explosions.

The passive tree you linked isn't something I'd recommend. You're sacrificing a lot of life. The Runesmith circle over by Shadow is a bit out of your way, and isn't a massive benefit in my opinion. If stuns is your issue, The Brine King might help out quite a bit, and doesn't require going all the way down to Unwavering Stance.