[3.9] Herald of Agony (Melee!) Necro--Get in Monsters' Faces Safely (5M Shaper DPS/8.4kLife+Fortify)

"

finkel1024 wrote:

t's amazing build but i made some changes
1)in blight league i was using helm with minion life and damage for zombies
2)gloves with poison and faster attacks
then i used life gain on hit
this league i use just gloves couse zombies are realy weak/ Ihave some problems with metamorphs on maps. And still can't kill sirus.

You may be the first person to use this build two leagues in a row, so thanks for the info and feedback :)

how do you deal with mana reservation issues? i had to use 3 points up in soverignty.

Also, what's a good attack rate for cyclone to shoot for? i'm currently sitting ~12 attacks per second

Thanks, great build

"

inB4nOOb wrote:

how do you deal with mana reservation issues? i had to use 3 points up in soverignty.

Also, what's a good attack rate for cyclone to shoot for? i'm currently sitting ~12 attacks per second

Thanks, great build

PoB is showing around 13 APS. As much as you can get is best so you can stack up Poison quickly. Slower APS means slower ramp up, but isn't necessarily a terrible thing, all things considered. (ie: Don't neglect %chance over attack speed. Those stats feed off each other.)

Mana issues shouldn't be too much of a concern. Classic Cyclone-build etiquette applies. :)

You want to chase Elreon enchants. That's "- mana cost per cast" and doubled up if you can. (Rings)

Lacking that, you want +mana on hit where you can get it.

Lacking that, mana regen and % phys damage as mana.

(Added: My own regen can just about keep up with Cyclone, but I need better APS and some gear upgrades, so it probably won't keep up with it for long. Just a nice coincidence, not something to build towards.)

Flask - Use a Mana flask, preferably something with... I forget the affix, mentioned it in a previous post, but with extended mana returned for a lower return rate over time, hopefully to keep a few small ticks in your bar while you're moving to hit the target. It can help make things less painful if you're not yet geared up decently.

General Cyclone Conservation Practices - Don't use Cyclone as a "Movement Skill" between packs unless you have the mana and are very worried about getting stunned. IF you have Elreon enchants on your rings, this will not be a concern. If you don't, it certainly will be.

Your mana pool should not be neglected. With other build Classes with lower pools, they have a much harder time of it with Cyclone. While these are all %reserved effects, our mana pool and Cyclone's very small mana cost should be fairly fine together. There's an opportunity for added mana (And even mana regen.) in rings, neck, belt, boots, even gloves depending on what choices you make. More base mana means you can make up for lacking -mana cost, +mana on hit, %damage as mana, etc, to a point. It also means you can do things, once your pool is up, like recast Zombies in a pinch, too. (Stone Golem might be a bit out of reach for most as there's no reason to really stack a ton of mana. It shouldn't be dying, though.. The AG I'm running dies more often than my Stone Golem. :/ )


PS - I'm on console. We have crap for choices in our marketplace. It's horrible for anything resembling something "decent" on PC. My gear, aside from the basic Uniques and general build constraints, isn't great IMO. Yet, with what poor selection I've had to choose from alongside what pieces of garbage I've found along the way, I haven't had any real concerns for my mana costs. I don't have Elreon enchants and have made up for that with %dmg/+manaperhit/mana regen/ and mana pool in general and liberal use of a mana flask when needed/available. The only times I've had issues are on certain boss fights where I've faced an extended phase of "no adds to hit/kill." Even then, nothing terrible in terms of mana use.

Ya, i went with double min endurance charge enchants and only one - mana cost enchant. I guess i could try another - mana cost enchant instead. I haven't really had mana issues at all, it's just i'm not left with enough mana to cast holy relic and resummon stone golem and the what not without the minus reservation.

I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one having this issue. Unless i missed something glaring, which i don't think i did. My profile is public if someone wants to check it out. I don't really know how to post gear in the forum.

character is _Brigit_ in standard. I don't play league very much because i despise starting over =p

Thanks.

"

inB4nOOb wrote:

Ya, i went with double min endurance charge enchants and only one - mana cost enchant. I guess i could try another - mana cost enchant instead.

You should be more than fine at -9. :)

"

I haven't really had mana issues at all, it's just i'm not left with enough mana to cast holy relic and resummon stone golem and the what not without the minus reservation.

That's a mana pool issue, not a mana cost issue in the small window of reservd mana we have. You probably need some more straight +mana to make that unreserved pool large enough to cast Holy Relic and get some Zombies up when needed. Don't count on being able to recast Stone Golem without dropping an aura. Stone Golems are pretty darn resilient.

"

I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one having this issue. Unless i missed something glaring, which i don't think i did. My profile is public if someone wants to check it out. I don't really know how to post gear in the forum.

You're not the only one who may not be able to cast Stone Golem while fully buffed. And, for unreserved mana issues during Cyclone with mid-level gear and no Elreon's enchance, it's a "maybe."

I play with the small pack of unwashed masses on XBox... We have garbage for sale in our Marketplace. And, what's not garbage is set at a price that is fine-tuned to send the entire "Brady Bunch" to college. It might even pay for their schoolbooks... Srsly - It's a pricing nightmare on console.

If I, with craptastic gear, can not have any mana issues I'm concerned about for the moment, you shouldn't be having any at all. :) Again - Quickly getting your Stone Golem up, again, is a big mana hit. I wouldn't stack gear preferences on doing that, honestly. Everything else is cake as long as there are corpses nearby for your Zombies.

Note: +Regen ain't bad if you can add it, but don't try to stack for it. Get some +Mana and INT if you can't even get a Relic cast with your unreserved pool. If you can't do that, you can't do everything else and spam Bone Barrier as soon as it's up. :)

Big pools make people happy. So, do big pools! :)

"

character is _Brigit_ in standard. I don't play league very much because i despise starting over =p

Thanks.

I looked just for the -mana cost and saw you were covered, there. If it's an unreserved pool issue, stack +Mana and Int, in that order. While keeping Dex up, too, add a tad of +regen if you're concerned about quickly getting your Zombies back up, with available corpses already there, without having to drop anything.

consider mana gain on hit suffix* on rings, goes up to 3, same for jewels. Even better on jewels as you may be loosing a bunch of res giving away a suffix on a ring/amu

I'm going to replace that crafted light res with min endurance charges

"

inB4nOOb wrote:

how do you deal with mana reservation issues? i had to use 3 points up in soverignty.

Also, what's a good attack rate for cyclone to shoot for? i'm currently sitting ~12 attacks per second

Thanks, great build

It doesn't take that long to unspec an aura to resummon a golem. Like I've said multiple times in this thread, my minions didn't die often so I didn't have to resummon often. Maybe this league is different, but if you're in standard then I can't imagine when you're running into. I never considered getting aura reservation reductions. If it's that big a deal then my build leaves room for a portal gem to be replaced with your movement skill and your movement skill's slot to be filled with Enlighten to free up exactly 6% of your mana from Hatred.

Glad you enjoy it, though.

"

codetaku wrote:

...Like I've said multiple times in this thread, my minions didn't die often so I didn't have to resummon often. Maybe this league is different, but if you're in standard then I can't imagine when you're running into. ...

Metamorphs will trainwreck minions. No foolin'. Minions don't know how to "not stand in the fire" and without a ton of support, like a traditional minion build, 4-link or less minions are just fodder for some Metamorphs.

There have been general "Boss Encounter" difficulty enhancements. For myself, they're unnoticeable compared to what a suitably upset Metamorph can do in terms of both burst damage and over-time effects.

This is an unpolished, unbalanced, Challenge League. A ton of effort is being put into what will be effectively PoE 2.0 for the .4 Update. And, it's always crunch-time at the end of the year when there's holidays and "real life" to consider. In effect, Metamorph League is a "give them something to tinker with, let them build their own doom."

Keep in mind that the majority of Metamorphs I encounter are no issue. The ones that are giving me a hard time get a Vaal Skellies.. But, there are some that can not be attempted with this build. That's fine - It's true of every build out there. Much like a pure phys-totems build probably shouldn't or can't do Phys Reflect maps, there are some Metamorphs we probably should or can't do... But, it's very hard to get a feel for what any of the "affixes" actually "do" for Metamorphs and what the damage output is going to be. And, if we can't get near them and they don't have any "adds?" No stacking Poison, no Agony Crawler, no appreciable outgoing dps, no leech... etc = Respawn. :)

Note: Two "killer app" things in the build probably need to be recognized: Getting that final Ascendancy, for the damage reduction which will still count when a Metamorphs is spawned on top of existing corpses, and the ever-present DR from the +1 Endurance Charges enchant. (Honestl, any DR Passives on the existing tree absolutely need to be "chase items" for players as they build up. Ex: I should have rushed for "Soul of Steel" after getting Heart of the Warrior instead of moving along that portion of the tree to fill it out. Getting more +%life is just giving Metamorphs a bigger meal at this point... :) (Though, with all +%Life, stacking it certainly helps when/where you can.)

I imagine the Conqueror's get pretty tough, too. But, they've been pushover's so far. I haven't seen Sirru's<sp> fight, yet, though. I think both Shaper and Elder fights, when they're possible, have been buffed along with the general "boss buff" content for the update.

PS - The complaints of dead minions aren't your build's fault. Everyone is experiencing increasingly evident issues with minion survivability in this League's encounters. Zombies are a given, with their nerf, but even Spectres are getting wiped on tougher content - GGG wanted "ground effects" and "area effect" to act as the "equalizers" for what would otherwise be a ton of hard development work during a very crucial crunch time.

"This too shall pass" is the theme of every PoE League, after all. ;)

Hi! great build, loving it.

Just one question, curious why Commander of Darkness is not even considered for last ascendancy? The way I read it it seems pretty good, does Plaguebringer surclass it that much?

Thanks!

Ran into a wall and instadie sometimes just clearing packs. how can I juice this build for more defenses?