[3.11] Bashtart's HERALD OF PURITY GUARDIAN: cheap starter & endgame boss farmer with insane dps!

In my opinion leveling was very easy. The first few level until you get Blade Vortex you can just use some random attack / spell skill like Orb of Storm or something similar. With level 16 you can use Herald of Purity. From this point on your sentinels will do alot of work for you but they will not feel too good until you get some support gems like minion speed or feeding frenzy linked to them. Early on mana can be an issue so I would recommend to use clarity.

While leveling look for life, resistances and movement speed on you gear and jewels. You can use some standard leveling items like Tabula Rasa, Wanderlust or Goldrim. While leveling look on gear for life, resistances and movement speed.

COLD IRON POINT DAGGER

The build is based on two relatively cheap uniques - the cold Iron point dagger which increases the skill level of all physical skills per 3 - dual wielding means +6 levels to Herald of Purity, Carrion and Stone Golem, Pride and Vulnerability. And by the way those daggers are really cheap - bought two of them for four chaos orbs. One problem with Herald of Purity while mapping is that you need to kill enemies to always resummon your sentinels because there is not always a rare mob to hit nearby. The daggers have very low damage so attack based skills are not really an option. I decided to go with Blade Vortex because it also profits from the +6 levels and the damage of spells scales crazy with higher levels. Additionally Blade Vortex is a perfect fit for this build because it hits very often and after casting it is around for a short duration and with Unleash we only need to cast it once in a while.

CIRCLE OF GUILT

The second unique we use for this build is the ring Circle of Guilt. We use two of those rings to reduce the mana reservation of Herald of Purity which allows us to run it as 6link and additionally we can run pride with it. The second stats you should look for on this ring is „Sentinel Damage“ which easy increases your dps by a few 100k.

Another option to reduce the mana reservation of Herald of Purity is the Coming Calamity armour which reduces the mana reservation of Herald skill always to 35%.

This two uniques are enough to scale your damage. If you want to increase you dps even more you get a chest which increases the Herald of Purity by another few levels.

For the Blade Vortex setup I decided to go with gloves which support socketed gems with cast speed. Other than that just look for following stats on gear:
Life
Resistances
Armour
Life regeneration
Movement speed

On jewels look for:
Life
Movement speed for minions
Minion attack speed
Minion Damage
Chance to taunt / blind on hit

There are not really good Flasks to increase the damage of our sentinels so I decided to go mainly with defensive flasks to increase our survivability.
Life Flask: with antibleeding is a musthave imo.
Quicksilver Flask: improve the clear speed a lot.
Sulphur Flask: gives additional life regeneration and some dmg.
Basalt Flask: for addtional physical damage mitigation.
Granit Flask: in increase our armour which increases our damage mitigation.

The best entchantment for the helmet is one additional sentinel because this will increase our dps by onefifth. One boots I personally like life regeneration when we get hit. I don’t feel that the glove entchantment is too important so just pick one you prefer.

My prefered option anointment is "Ravenous Horde".

1) Radiant Crusade
2) Unwavering Crusade
3) Bastion of Hope
4) Harmony of Purpose
The ascendancy guardian is great for minions with the buffs it got this league. It gives our minions clear speed and dps with unwavering and radiant crusade which I recommend as first and second lab. The third lab should be Bastion of Hope which is just crazy strong for defense... we get armour, block chance and nearly half of the time our we have max block chance. The last ascendancy is Harmony of Purpose which gives the chance to get endurance, power and frenzy charges on hit for us.

SKILL TREE
On the passive skill tree we go mainly for minion dps and life nodes. First we rush to the minion nodes which let minion attack speed and damage apply to us which is really nice for leveling and also a big help later on. As soon as you get your golems with lvl 34 I would get the golem cluster for a second active golem at the same time and increased golem buff effect.

After that you should just travel to life nodes if you need more survivability and to minion dps nodes if you feel you need more dps.
Skill Tree level 93

SKILLS
Herald of Purity + Feeding Frenzy + Deathmark / Minion Speed + Brutality + Multistrike / Melee Physical Damage + Impale
Herald of Purity is the main skill of this build and is used for clearing and for melting down bosses. TBH I really think it is the best single target dps with so low investment I ever had. In the standard setup I would use minion speed because while mapping you have more than enough dps. For endgame bosses you can switch in Deathmark support.

Blade Vortex / Bladefall + Arcane Surge + Unleash + Brutality
The main purpose of Blade Vortex setup is to kill trash mobs and hit bosses to spawn your Sentinels of Purity. Use a low level arcane surge which should always proc when you cast Blade Vortex.

(Another option as Main Skill is Blade Bladefall)

Summon Carrion Golem + Summon Stone Golem + Raise Spectre + Meat Shield
This setup is super strong and important for this build. The Golem and the Spectres stay always close to us and taunt enemies which come to close to us. Additionally the golems give powerful buffs to our minions and to us. The Carrion golem provides a lot of flat physical damage and the stone golem a lot flat life regeneration.

Spectres:
For additional protection I decided to go with spectres called Heretical Guardian (ruined / Ravaged Square, act 5&10) with a proximity shield. Another option are Stoneskin Flayers which are very tanky and strong.

Use "A" to select the right corpse to summon your Spectre. If a spectre dies use desecrate to resummon them.

Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks + Fortify
The Whirling Blades setup allows us to travel very fast throw maps and Fortiy gives us additional survivability.

CWDT + Vaal Molten Shell + Enfeeble + Convocation
The cast when damage taken setup should proc Molten Shell for damage reduction, curses our enemies with enfeeble which reduces their damage and calls all our minions to us with convocation. Flesh Offering is a good alternative option for this setup for more dps. The Vaal Molten Shell can be used for dangerous encounter like Metamorphs.

UTILITY / MANA RESERVATION
Pride / Flesh and Stone / Dreadbanner + Enlighten
WIthout the circle of guilt rings we will not be able to use all mana reservation skills. You probably want to use Flesh and Stone and Dreadbanner. With the Circle of Guilt rings you will be able to use all mana reservation skills and a 6link Herald of Purity setup.
Punishment / Vulnerability
Punishment seems to give a bit more dps but vulnerability is available on corrupted gloves and on rings.
Summon Holy Relic
The holy relic helps us to keep our minions alive but could also replace by something else like vaal hast or spirit Offering for more dps.

Optional:
Optional we can use Vaal Haste to push our dps a bit more. In my opinion that is not really necessary because our sentinel damage is already insane.
Desecrate
Can be used in our second weapon setup or just left in the inventory. It is used to create corpses to resummon our spectres if one or more of them died. Does not happen very often...

Following are possible options for CLUSTER JEWELS NOTABLES:
Disciples
Rotten Claws

PANTHEON & BANDITS
I would go with Soul of Arakaali and Tukohama to increase our physical damage mitigation, protection against Damage of Time effects and push our life regeneration. Soul of Shakari is also a good option for minor pantheon to reduce chaos damage taken and get immunity to poison.

For bandits kill them all for the two extra passive points because passives are very viable for this build.