[3.9] Herald of Agony (Melee!) Necro--Get in Monsters' Faces Safely (5M Shaper DPS/8.4kLife+Fortify)
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Welp, it cost me 3ex but,
Now I can focus on other stuff. And the white guys says, I'll have a Coke then.
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" Yeah, that amulet isn't amazing but it's fine. I don't think there's a particularly good Unique for this slot (Aul's can be used as a pivot point to take the build in a different direction, though), so just make your rare as good as possible. Remember that links and levels are almost all of what the crawler needs, so your amulet is pure defense. " 1. We have massive life regeneration. The life flask isn't to "refill" our life pool, it's to bolster our recovery. You can bolster your recovery any number of other ways you wish, but personally I've been able to clear all content in the game except HoGM with this build and don't find myself dying in maps. Further, the 30% life recovery rate from our bone ascendancy passive also improves flask recovery, in addition to our regeneration. Our static functional regeneration at high levels exceeds 1k per second (after factoring in recovery rate), the life flask comes close to doubling it. 2. "We" don't receive the extra energy shield because we don't take mistress of sacrifice. Further, you may be misunderstanding how offerings work--casting a second one before the duration of the first runs out doesn't make them stack. You can only have 1 offering active at a time. We choose spirit offering because it's a huge DPS boost to the crawler (way more than flesh offering). In practice, I dive into packs so often that any time I'd be in any danger at all, the offering triggers and so our crawler is dealing its bonus damage and our minions are safer (the elemental resistances helps our zombies a lot because we don't stack many defenses on them besides the support gems). So the reason I fully leveled CwDT is that we just get more damage from Spirit Offering that way, and it triggers often enough because we have tons of life and don't mind losing a bit here and there. 3. So, Pride isn't a bad idea, but I'll explain why I picked hatred. First and foremost, our crawler has an intrinsic 40% physical converted to chaos damage, so even without our spirit offering up, the pride mod only applies to 60% of the crawler's damage. 0.6 * 0.4 (at level 21 pride) is only a 24% dps increase. In contrast, Hatred is a 31% more dps multiplier before spirit offering applies (spirit offering reduces the effective multiplier of each but it's by the same proportional amount so it's irrelevant). Further, Hatred scales quadratically with aura effectiveness via Generosity; not only can Pride only scale linearly with aura effectiveness, but it can't be supported by Generosity, losing more dps. Finally, Hatred affects all of the damage of Your Minions (which are close to you by design), whereas Pride only affects enemies near to you. So while your agony crawler will be dealing huge physical hits to enemies within your pride aura, we're not scaling aura radius so the enemies being hit far away from chained projectiles won't be affected by Pride. The one reason to pick Pride over Hatred is if you're dealing with things with a high elemental resistance. In maps with bonus elemental resistances but no physical damage reduction, Pride will actually come out on top for nearby monsters; on the other hand, Hatred diversifies our damage output so that maps with "+40% physical damage reduction" won't impede us as much, either. As for haste, it's pretty meh for us. There's no more multiplier involved so it makes us move a bit faster but has a trivial effect on the crawler (you wouldn't want Generosity on a Haste aura). 4. Unfortunately, they do! You can either go to character select between phases to respawn everything in your hideout, or you can count on your dodging ability to make it through the whole fight with just the crawler. The damage output from the crawler is high enough that you'll phase the bosses really quickly (like a second each), but unfortunately the persistent damage during invincibility phases will wipe our your minions anyway. Uber elder is all about dodging. This is a tanky build but it is not a build meant to deliberately tank things. If you don't want to die in uber elder, you will have to dodge. The big advantage is that you can phase them fast enough that you won't have to dodge that many times in a row. 5. There's no link that Empower would be better off replacing. One key point of this build is to hit the ultimate breakpoint of level 31 without needing Empower. Even if you end up doing some kind of crazy spin-off build that uses a +2 Skin of the Loyal, a level 6 empower will still only give 37% more damage (from level 31 to level 36), worse than any of our single-target links. 6. It's fine to take it or not. The thing is, we don't need more dps for clear, and unholy might on kill doesn't do anything against bosses. The biggest effect will be more survivability to our minions (which do die sometimes since we're far more dedicated to the crawler than to our zombies). Thanks also to boltonsquads for chiming in but I like to be super-thorough :) Last edited by codetaku#0468 on Sep 28, 2019, 9:02:06 PM
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I managed to craft these:
This gives me the option to now have another gem in this setup, which could be Life Gained on Hit for Cyclone main setup :) |
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Picked this up for short money:
Already has Fearsome Force on it. Replace it with Golem's Blood you think? edit: also, what are you guys doing for ring tower enchants? And the white guys says, I'll have a Coke then. Last edited by Westwood1121#4481 on Sep 28, 2019, 11:51:18 PM
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Hello again!
bought some new stuff. Check me pls) What you think about Circle of nostalgia? thx |
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First off, great build and a very fun take on the HoA.
Just wanted to add that I decided to use a Maw of Conquest(3c) + a Golden Rule Jewel for faster Virulence stacking (instant 40 even with only 95% chance from lost jewel) while using an Amulet and a ring to make up the much needed Dex. I lost a bit of life (vs. Starkonja or movespeed vs. Devotos) but the % of Damage Taken Gained as Life over 4 seconds actually makes me feel a bit tankier (not 100% sure if it's affected by our passive but it probably is) along with the extra chaos resist from Golden Rule (which still works cuz no immunity). I just wanted to add this little tip because I noticed a lot of people wanted to run a Golden Rule without CI and, as far as I know, this is the best/only way to do so. Cheers! Great build so far! Last edited by Troublesome08#5141 on Sep 29, 2019, 2:02:14 AM
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" Sure, but remember if you do that, you really want 2 elreon crafts rather than just one :/ (also I wouldn't give up 30 movespeed for anything but that's just me) " I would personally replace it, yes. The AoE only affects the crawler's mortar which already shotguns quite nicely; the clear skill doesn't need it. And 15% damage on our crawler is quite trivial. I'm personally just using meteor damage as a ring enchant. It doesn't matter at all as our build can clear t15 blighted maps without building any towers. " Uh wow, that's quite the gear you have, huh? If you feel tanky enough with one ring being used entirely for offense, go for it, absolutely. It looks like you're stacking less life than I am but more dps? My build at level 96 does have 8k life as advertised. I see you've gone for the hatred + vitality combo; I think at some point, you really want to upgrade four of your five jewels to 5% poison chance (I see you're using 5 poison jewels now) and then buy a vitality watcher's eye; frankly, Vitality isn't that good of an aura without at least one watcher's eye mod (life recovery rate or life gain on hit; if you get both you've got a bingo). " Sure, that's a nice idea! Unlike the person who suggested Soul of Shakari, this combo absolutely *does* work, as you said, so you don't need to stack nearly as much attack speed if you go this route, which also lets you free up some passive points. Losing the movespeed from Devoto's is a big loss for me, but for bossing this might actually be the best choice if you can get your dex requirements elsewhere (such as from the passive points you can retrieve). And yes, you are correct that the last mod synergizes with the 30% increased recovery rate from our bone passive. I'll add this to the main post and credit you :) Last edited by codetaku#0468 on Sep 29, 2019, 5:50:00 AM
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Reporting back in again. I went and got a 6L chest which was a nice damage buff, but this build works beautifully on a 5L (was doing t15 maps no prob on a 5L).
This is my highest level character I've ever had. I've been playing (off and on) since beta. Wonderful build and guide. My only changes right now are that I dropped portal for convocation and frost blink for flame dash. Portal is a nice QoL, but convocation is pivotal when you need it (e.g. flame dash onto a new platform, moved around a corner, proximity shield). Curious on how important is the attack speed on daggers? Is it just for a quicker virulence stack? They seem really expensive for what seems like a small improvement. Last edited by Aevaris#1012 on Sep 29, 2019, 10:30:37 AM
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You can also save a point here and get a further 10 DEX:
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Man, I like that idea with the Maw of Conquest. How do you guys find these things? haha
Just be forewarned, to get 3G on it is a trick. need the craft for it at 120 chroms. And the white guys says, I'll have a Coke then.
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