[3.6] Herald Of Agony Ascendant - Begginer Friendly - Hardcore viable

After killing Hillock get Explosive Trap at Nessa and buy 2 wands with 2 links (Blue+Green) and other with 1 socket green. If there's none by that time it's ok. Just keep looking for those collors in any piece of gear.


On the 1 green socket Wand you will put the Explosive Trap that you got from Nessa in start, And in the 2Link (blue+green) you will place Onslaught and Frost Bomb. The Frost Bomb you will get after entering the Flooded Depths.

Link1 (1Green): Explosive Trap
Link2 (1Green+1Blue): Frost Bomb + Onslaught


Get these gems with Nessa and save it in a socket, just to level it on your way.
Lesser Poison Support Gem after finishing the Medicine Chest Quest

Minion Damage Support Gem after entering The Prision arround level 8

Also get a Decoy totem from Nessa, it will help you killing Brutus and the rest of acts Bosses.




This is how your skill tree will be until the next section http://poeurl.com/b9xE

This setup will carry you until the End of Act 1. Open the Level 12 Section to continue your journey.

Keep an Eye for 3Link itens with 3 Green sockets & 1 Green 1 Blue 1 Red Socket like these

When you reach Merveil's Cave choose the Blade Vortex Skill Gem and place it combined with Lesser Poison Support Gem.

If you already found a 3L Green item put Onslaught there also.





Keep an eye to get life itens, like Coral rings and Leather Belt. Also remember to upgrade your Life&Mana Flasks.

This is how your tree will be until the next section of your journey http://poeurl.com/b9xN

After finishing Chamber of Sins you can buy the Herald of Agony gem on the vendor

You can now place Herald of Agony + Minion Damage Support


Kill all bandits and remember to keep upgrading your Life&Mana Flasks and keep searching for High Life Itens

Kill all

After killing The Weaver on Spider Cave grab Damage on Full Life & Faster Attacks

Place Herald of Agony + Minion Damage Support + Damage on Full Life
In your 3L 1Green 1Red 1Blue



And keep Blade Vortex + Lesser Poison Support + Onslaught in your 3L 3Green



Also replace by now it is a good idea for you to replace your wands for a Weapon&Shield. And make the Shield Charge+Faster Attacks Setup


This is how your Tree will look like until the next section of your Journey http://poeurl.com/b9xW

Remember to keep upgrading your Life&Mana Flasks and Searching for High Life itens.

Get Convocation it will help you to control your Crawler's Position on the battle field.


At level 24 you can put an Aura of your Preference. Usually I go with Hatred to boost my damage. But if you feel like going a bit safer, use Purity of Elements.

Keep an Eye for 4L Itens (Specially 2Green+1Red+1Blue)

In further league you can choose to start leveling all the Gems/Auras you will be using on the build. It is not viable in the very start of the league because the high alteration cost.

Here's the list of Auras you could be leveling in offhands to complete your build later on

-Vitality
-Discipline
-Purity of Ice
-Purity of Fire
-Purity of Lightning
-Grace
-Haste
-Hatred
-Determination

Remember to keep upgrading your Flasks & High Life Itens.

Keep an Eye for 4L Itens (Specially 2Green+1Red+1Blue)
Also 4L with 3Green+1Blue

In act 3 after reaching Ebony Barracks, lead yourself to the Library quest instead Piety.

After completing Library, assuming you found 4L itens you can improve your HoA setup and your Poison Setup
Get Ball Lightining and Poison Support

You will replace your Blade Vortex for Ball Lightning at this point
Setup 1: 4L (2Green + 1 Red + 1 Blue)


Setup 2: 3L (2Green + 1 Blue)

If you find a 3Green+1Blue you can place Lesser Multiple Proj support, or Slower Proj Support. But it is not required.

You can choose to Use a Banner in this phase. I prefer the Dread Banner that will allow your Crawler to Impale, but the other Banner is also nice with the extra damage. Really your preference.

With this setup you can carry on until the end of acts. And you can keep using it, life based, doing maps to farm for your Low-Life Itens & for Regret Orbs (you are going to need a lot of Regrets)

This is how your tree will look along the way

Arround library quest in act 3
Level 28 http://poeurl.com/b9yi

Arround end of act4
Level 40 http://poeurl.com/b9yl

Arround end of act 7
Level 55 http://poeurl.com/b9ym

Arround blood aqueducts or start of maps
Level 70 http://poeurl.com/b9yn

You can always choose to pick the Jewel Sockets on the tree on your leveling, IF you have good jewels to place there.

This is how your tree will be at level 80+, while maping, farming for your Regret Orbs and for the money to get your Low Life Gear.

Level 80+ http://poeurl.com/b9yn

You can get the Tireless Node and the 3 life nodes below Duelist area. Try to focus getting as much %Life you can.

After you are done with farming your Low Life Gear & Regret Orbs you can respec into the Real and Final Tree. This is the end of leveling section and the begin of the real thing.

In the 'leveling section' of this guide you don't really need any specific Item. Focus on getting High Life & Resistances gear and you will be golden. Some uniques like the sword Aurumvorax, or The Goldrim Leather Cap are really helpfull to help you in resists, but you don't really need them. With this leveling tree I developed it is really easy to Max out your resists using the Rare itens you get along the way.

Use the Leveling Section Build tree, scaling %Life until you farm all the itens required to go Low Life. Example; Shavs, shield, helmet, gloves, etc... with huge ES. After you farmed for all the itens in the Item section of the Lowlife part, you can respec the Life tree into this one:

Build Tree

PasteBin:https://pastebin.com/qqRxN6tv
PoEURL:http://poeurl.com/b9yO

1- Guardian first
2- And than Necromancer..
And in UberLab you pick the 'Start at Witch Area' ascendancy node

Some of these gears you can get without the corruptions, to make it cheaper, but these are the itens you are aiming to get for End game content. The helmet can get much better if you craft with Bound (for the 5% mana reservation roll) and Dense fossil (for the ES).

The Gem Setup depends on your gear setup. For example, if you have an Unset Ring like me, you can put Discipline on the Ring and put Generosity with Hatred on weapon, that way the crawler will have a huge Boost to the damage. If you prefer to be safer, you could drop the Unset ring and put Lori's Lantern. Basically there's a bunch of combinations that would also work pretty fine depending on your gear choices, But the basic Links are these:

Gloves:


Helmet:

The Order of the gems Need to be like this Cast on damage taken > Desecrate > Spirit Offering to make the setup work properly

Weapon:


Shield:


Body-Armour:


Boots:

Force your Boot to have 3L for the ball lightning and the Vigilant Strike NON-LINKED so it costs less mana and you can have fortify up

The amount of '-1% Mana Reserved' Corruption on your Jewels depends on your Enlighten Level, on your Helmet Mana reservation Roll etc... You can always drop one aura on the very start of the build and than build your way to Optimize the build to 100%.

These are the important Jewels to have on the build


The Watcher's Eye
Personally I like the permanent Phasing for Delving, and the Regen/Recovery is always nice..

But another Option would be a Watcher's Eye with Life on Hit while Vitality. With that you could drop the Shaped Ring and use either a Lori's Lantern for Defenses and Chaos resistance, or The Pariah Ring for flat 100ES.

Kill all

Pantheons really depends on what content you are doing.

I usually go with Soul of Solaris for the Major Pantheon
And Ralakesh for the Minor Pantheon