[Major Damage/Mapping Improvements-Update 7.1.22 PoB/Vid] The Fortified Summoner: HoP MI Champion

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0piate wrote:

I see, looks like a well thought out build, good work.

Thank you! feel free to share feedback if you have ideas; definitely still tweaking and improving :)

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Peterrabbit_01 wrote:

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0piate wrote:

I see, looks like a well thought out build, good work.

Thank you! feel free to share feedback if you have ideas; definitely still tweaking and improving :)

Only thing that comes to mind is maybe try that build with the Maurader/Juggernaut. Then you can build up a tank and scale up Minion Instability. Maurader is closer to all the skill points you need, plus the Juggernauts movement skill would be nice for Cyclone.

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0piate wrote:

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Peterrabbit_01 wrote:

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0piate wrote:

I see, looks like a well thought out build, good work.

Thank you! feel free to share feedback if you have ideas; definitely still tweaking and improving :)

Only thing that comes to mind is maybe try that build with the Maurader/Juggernaut. Then you can build up a tank and scale up Minion Instability. Maurader is closer to all the skill points you need, plus the Juggernauts movement skill would be nice for Cyclone.

Jugg would probably work just fine. Haven't pathed it out, but off the top of my head it looks to be a tradeoff between Champion having perma-fortify and Worthy Foe as a minion damage adder, vs Jugg extra movespeed+a bit more life/armour. I would argue the build as it is has plenty of defensive capability, and I would be hesitant to give up Fortify/Worthy Foe, but I'll plan out a Jugg version and see how it looks. Thanks for the suggestion!

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Peterrabbit_01 wrote:

Jugg would probably work just fine. Haven't pathed it out, but off the top of my head it looks to be a tradeoff between Champion having perma-fortify and Worthy Foe as a minion damage adder, vs Jugg extra movespeed+a bit more life/armour. I would argue the build as it is has plenty of defensive capability, and I would be hesitant to give up Fortify/Worthy Foe, but I'll plan out a Jugg version and see how it looks. Thanks for the suggestion!

Jugg is hard to beat for tankiness. You could always get fortify with him too, you can link Fortify on hit with your Cyclone, or do a Leap Slam with fortify in it. I just thought it would be stronger because it's closer to all the skill points you need.

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0piate wrote:

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Peterrabbit_01 wrote:

Jugg would probably work just fine. Haven't pathed it out, but off the top of my head it looks to be a tradeoff between Champion having perma-fortify and Worthy Foe as a minion damage adder, vs Jugg extra movespeed+a bit more life/armour. I would argue the build as it is has plenty of defensive capability, and I would be hesitant to give up Fortify/Worthy Foe, but I'll plan out a Jugg version and see how it looks. Thanks for the suggestion!

Jugg is hard to beat for tankiness. You could always get fortify with him too, you can link Fortify on hit with your Cyclone, or do a Leap Slam with fortify in it. I just thought it would be stronger because it's closer to all the skill points you need.

So I did a bit of playing around with the tree for Jugg, and there's some interesting results. Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. Can't link fortify with cyclone, at least not without destroying our damage. Current 6link is SRS/Minion Life/Minion Damage/Cyclone/CwC/Combustion, with only Combustion being an actual gem (Life/Damage are Helmet affixes). As Fortify support does nothing for Instability damage, dropping combustion is a non-option.

2. Can't leap slam/shield charge; using claws. Whirling blades maybe? Either way we really don't want to be interrupting our cyclone channel periodically to re-apply fortify. Not ideal.

3. We can just make up the defensive difference in health. This is about 1k extra health needed for equivalent survivablity against a single hit, and turns out since Jugg has access to armour boosting ascendancy points we can scale back on some armour nodes on the map and invest them into life.

What this effectively means is that going from Champion to Jugg gets you roughly similar survivability (Better vs Physical damage due to endurance charge generation, worse vs Elemental damage due to no Fortify), and ~15% extra move speed, at the cost of 20% damage due to missing Worthy Foe from Champion Ascendancy.



Edit: Pastebin link for those interested in the Jugg version.
https://pastebin.com/66midEhX

Side note: I wasn't able to quite make up the 1k extra health due to the fact that I ran out of life nodes in easy reach. Got about 80% there though, which should be good enough. Fortify really lets us get away with lower health pools, which saves a fair amount of nodes on champion.

I only played the Juggernaut once and died very rarely. He is tanky vs. elemental damage too if you get Unrelenting in the ascendancy. The four second timer on Fortify on Hit gives you enough time to clear out a mob when linked with a movement skill like Whirling Blade. Then you can use Whirling Blade to initiate on the next mob to keep it going. An initiation/movement skill helps with survivability because you won't take damage as you are getting to the monsters. When you have a boss that takes more than four seconds to kill then yes you have to interrupt your attack if you want to keep the fortify. Which usually isn't a big deal. I've used Vigilant strike too as a utility skill to give me a ten second timer on fortify for boss killing. You can also get a five link two handed sword without spending too much, that would give you an extra gem slot to link fortify with Cyclone without losing your Combustion. The Queens Escape is a two handed sword with some nice minion mods on it. Fortitude in the Champion is more of a convenience, I use fortify in every melee build without it.

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0piate wrote:

I only played the Juggernaut once and died very rarely. He is tanky vs. elemental damage too if you get Unrelenting in the ascendancy. The four second timer on Fortify on Hit gives you enough time to clear out a mob when linked with a movement skill like Whirling Blade. Then you can use Whirling Blade to initiate on the next mob to keep it going. An initiation/movement skill helps with survivability because you won't take damage as you are getting to the monsters. When you have a boss that takes more than four seconds to kill then yes you have to interrupt your attack if you want to keep the fortify. Which usually isn't a big deal. I've used Vigilant strike too as a utility skill to give me a ten second timer on fortify for boss killing. You can also get a five link two handed sword without spending too much, that would give you an extra gem slot to link fortify with Cyclone without losing your Combustion. The Queens Escape is a two handed sword with some nice minion mods on it. Fortitude in the Champion is more of a convenience, I use fortify in every melee build without it.

I suggest you review the gem links; we are already using a pseudo 7 link for cyclone :) . Regardless, Juggernaut can work as well. If you want the extra movespeed, and don't mind maintaining fortify/loosing some damage, PoB is in previous comments.

Currently working up to UE, I plan to revise and expand the guide based on my experiences. Any suggestions on things people would like to see/have explained?

Thanks for the interest all who have checked in on this build!

Guide updated! Added a lot of explanation about the mechanics, gem links, and reasoning behind them. Drop me a line and let me know what you think, and if I have missed anything!

Final update for this rev of the guide: cleaned up some references and added the alternate Jugg version of this build (Thanks 0piate for the suggestion), and changed the name. How does the title feel? Turns out writing a concise but catchy title is harder than it sounds.

So, I take it that we immediately go SRS once when CWC and link it to cyclone for immediate non-stop SRS?