[3.10] Herald of Agony Mana Guardian | 2.5 Minute Sirus 8 | Deathless T19 100% Delirium

Really getting into this build...definitely "threading the needle" type build, but I enjoy the challenge. Have several questions for those that have experience with the build:
1) If I can fit any one of these, which would be best: Skitters, Discipline, F&S...two seem defensive, one offensive?
2) My HoA is at 25, how much more do I really need? (more dps is always welcome, but is it needed because it gets very expensive to start up-ing it) And, is lvl 31 the next break point and what gets that, +2 wand and +2 chest, and +1 amulet and lvl 21 HoA, and...?
3) If you do Lethal Pride and Rumi's, do you still need Bastion of Hope? No need in overcapping block, correct?
4) do we really need a 4th Spectre or is that just QoL? 3 with a golem works and the spectres don't really add much/any damage
Thanks in Advance

I have been delving and can't find a Primeval area to get the Spectres, any help? Think all I have to do is visit your hideout while you are there to Desecrate and pick up some Specs

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arandan wrote:

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falaakr wrote:

Unwavering crusade gives 30% increased damage, not 30% more damage. Since HoA naturally has a ton of increased damage (640% at 40 virulence stack at lvl 31), the 30% increased damage from crusade is not bigvery helpful. And time of need is indeed quite nice against bosses.

It's 40% + 15% as, and last time I checked %increased damage didn't have diminishing returns.

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falaakr wrote:

Why don't you run vaal molten shell+soul ripper? I find it very useful in deep delves, it's literraly 30k additional ES at the cost of a flask slot.

Because he has to give up the increased duration in order to fit f&s and you can't reliably keep up soulripper vaal molten shell without that.
He's wasted 3 talent points in order to fit that aura which means nothing, because deaths in those depths happen from bad positioning and/or not killing/focusing targets fast enough and half the time mobs that kill him are not even out f&s range.

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falaakr wrote:

Also you talk about reduced curse effectiveness, i don't think monster gets that in delve (excepted when they get that 60% curse effectiveness mod). Awakened curse on hit + projectile weakness is a good dps boost too.

You get less curse effectiveness scaling past 1.5k depth - complete non issue as far as this build is concerned, because to push deeper you'd need to switch to a no life build anyway.
Awakened curse on hit proj weakness is indeed very nice, especially if you give up pierce for more damage.

well i will now say that isnt true either. after playing with PoB i only lost about 400k dps. i went form 3.8m to 3.5mil (those are rough numbers the lost is between 300-400k dps) I am reffing to you top comment in the quoted area

I'm learning a lot of new things about poe in this thread. What precisely isn't true in that top quote, are you claiming that there are diminishing returns on %increased damage?

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Reactor52 wrote:

Really getting into this build...definitely "threading the needle" type build, but I enjoy the challenge. Have several questions for those that have experience with the build:
1) If I can fit any one of these, which would be best: Skitters, Discipline, F&S...two seem defensive, one offensive?
2) My HoA is at 25, how much more do I really need? (more dps is always welcome, but is it needed because it gets very expensive to start up-ing it) And, is lvl 31 the next break point and what gets that, +2 wand and +2 chest, and +1 amulet and lvl 21 HoA, and...?
3) If you do Lethal Pride and Rumi's, do you still need Bastion of Hope? No need in overcapping block, correct?
4) do we really need a 4th Spectre or is that just QoL? 3 with a golem works and the spectres don't really add much/any damage
Thanks in Advance

I have been delving and can't find a Primeval area to get the Spectres, any help? Think all I have to do is visit your hideout while you are there to Desecrate and pick up some Specs

1 i would running skitter bots. it gives 18% damage increase. after that i would go with f/s cause it is easier to fit

2 you dont techinally need a +2chest u could get away with a +2 amulet instead (might be cheaper idk i crafted mine and got stupid lucky.)

3. i dont know the answer just didnt want to seam like i skip that question.

4. well sorta. do u need 4 spectres no cause of golem BUT BUT BUT u ahve to waste a gem slot to get the golem where if you have a lvl 25 spectre gem u would save a spot. along with the golem tended to die alot for me and the spectres dont.

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arandan wrote:

I'm learning a lot of new things about poe in this thread. What precisely isn't true in that top quote, are you claiming that there are diminishing returns on %increased damage?

no im not claiming DR. i literally use my shaper/elder dps set up and that is what i got.

here are the 2 pobs to make this simple.

with UNWAVERING
https://pastebin.com/Dh8TWtHw

without UNWAVERING

https://pastebin.com/JGq31rZg



form what i know of the game so far. the 30% is being ADDED to the other increase damage.

for example: 100% increased damage + 30% increased damage = 130%
so if you have 100 damage it would be 100 damage * 130% = 230 damage

NOT 100 damage *100% = 200 *30% =260damage

i hope that makes sense this is the first time i am trying to explain PoE damaage things like that. im pretty sure the way i laid that out is correct if not someone other then arandan correct me (not calling you out i just would like someone outside of the convo between us to verify if i am correct or not)

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mcloren91 wrote:

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arandan wrote:

I'm learning a lot of new things about poe in this thread. What precisely isn't true in that top quote, are you claiming that there are diminishing returns on %increased damage?

no im not claiming DR. i literally use my shaper/elder dps set up and that is what i got.

here are the 2 pobs to make this simple.

with UNWAVERING
https://pastebin.com/Dh8TWtHw

without UNWAVERING

https://pastebin.com/JGq31rZg

Harmony of purpose doesn't grant charges to your minions, those POBs are a complete mess.
You lose 10% of your damage when you spec out of unwavering + corresponding small node.

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It's 40% + 15% as, and last time I checked %increased damage didn't have diminishing returns.

It's 30% increased attack damage, at least that's what it says on the tree ingame.

While increased damage doesn't have literraly diminishing returns (30% attack damage gives as much flat dps wether you have 0% increased or 650% increased), the relative dps gain is quite different. If you have 0% increased damage, 30% increased damage is the same as 30% more damage, while if you already have 900% increased damage otherwise, it's the same as 3% more damage, which is ok but not great.

And that 900% should be close to what you have (in my case, i have 887% total increased damage for Hoag at full stack).

The attack speed increase however is much more significant.

I personally like time of need a lot, but as i go deeper i'll probably switch to unwavering crusade.

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Because he has to give up the increased duration in order to fit f&s and you can't reliably keep up soulripper vaal molten shell without that.

Well that's not entierly true, you can get both flesh and stone and increased duration. There's multiple ways of doing that, you can give up faster casting, you can use an unset ring, or you can use a ring with poacher's mark on hit.

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He's wasted 3 talent points in order to fit that aura which means nothing, because deaths in those depths happen from bad positioning and/or not killing/focusing targets fast enough and half the time mobs that kill him are not even out f&s range.

Flesh and stone also blind nearby enemies which is a nice additional layer of defense.

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You get less curse effectiveness scaling past 1.5k depth - complete non issue as far as this build is concerned, because to push deeper you'd need to switch to a no life build anyway.
Awakened curse on hit proj weakness is indeed very nice, especially if you give up pierce for more damage.

Ok, i didn't know that. I'm considering getting rid of pierce but i'll have to test wether projectile weakness is enought for clearing in delve. Also does someone know how does reduced curse effectiveness interact with the pierce from projectile weakness? Do projectile still pierce monsters with reduced curse effectiveness?

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arandan wrote:

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mcloren91 wrote:

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arandan wrote:

I'm learning a lot of new things about poe in this thread. What precisely isn't true in that top quote, are you claiming that there are diminishing returns on %increased damage?

no im not claiming DR. i literally use my shaper/elder dps set up and that is what i got.

here are the 2 pobs to make this simple.

with UNWAVERING
https://pastebin.com/Dh8TWtHw

without UNWAVERING

https://pastebin.com/JGq31rZg

Harmony of purpose doesn't grant charges to your minions, those POBs are a complete mess.
You lose 10% of your damage when you spec out of unwavering + corresponding small node.

OOOOOO see i didnt know that. i will have to do some testing then cause it for sure seams like my crawler does more when i have the charges but i will double check.

also look at the post u quoted cause i updated it with a more detail explaintion of my understanding of how the numbers work in this game.

and lastly all i did in those 2 PoB is remove Unwavering from 1 of the them.

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Do projectile still pierce monsters with reduced curse effectiveness?

yes

As far as your top paragraph - that's not how %increased damage works at all, it's additive.

after some really quick testing. it seams that you are correct about the charges