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

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PathtoDivinity wrote:

So, I have finished crafting this

a few days ago. I am quite happy with it as it is the best in slot for my amulet. The total spending was around 15 Exalts including bulk seeds, flowers and the time spent on growing and getting the harvest crafts.

I had tried 100% Delirium T14 Strand Map. I strongly recommend using a Writhing Jar in this situation as without enemy unique mob around, you will need it to spawn the sentinel, otherwise you would get overwhelmed by mobs.

As for utility/support minions, I recommend 2x Arena Master, 1x Snow Rhex, 1x They of Tul and a tanky Kingmaker AG along with Carrion and Stone Golem.

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Landy3 wrote:

"

PathtoDivinity wrote:

So, I have finished crafting this

a few days ago. I am quite happy with it as it is the best in slot for my amulet. The total spending was around 15 Exalts including bulk seeds, flowers and the time spent on growing and getting the harvest crafts.

I had tried 100% Delirium T14 Strand Map. I strongly recommend using a Writhing Jar in this situation as without enemy unique mob around, you will need it to spawn the sentinel, otherwise you would get overwhelmed by mobs.

As for utility/support minions, I recommend 2x Arena Master, 1x Snow Rhex, 1x They of Tul and a tanky Kingmaker AG along with Carrion and Stone Golem.

Where do you find snow rhex at?

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kamikazi234 wrote:

Over the course of this league I have been running this build and actively trying to improve it to accomplish end-game content (my goal was 100% delerium, double beyond, T19 maps).

The final configuration of my tree provided the best of both survivability and damage imo.
My current build highlights are:
- 7.2k life
- Over 25M DPS from Herald of purity (over 5M DPS per sentinel x 5 sentinels)
- Onslaught and Fortify 24/7
- 90% physical damage reduction with flasks and endurance charges up
- 75% to all elemental and chaos resistance
- 25% dodge for both attack and spell (with +8% to spell from boot enchantment when I have taken spell damage recently).
- 75% block of both attacks and spell (providing 5% of my life every time, roughly 350 life)
- Stun protection (as we can't be stunned if we've blocked recently)

Pastebin (using the PoB Community Fork): https://pastebin.com/xgBS23YL

Build "versions" as I progressed and wanted to do double-beyond T19 maps:

Spoiler

1) Following the guide
This got me to end-game content and Sirius but I felt like there was other ways to prioritize gems and item mods to get tankier and do more damage.

2) Changing the build to use AG because additional level mods synergize perfectly (physical, spell and minion)
This meant that I could use my AG as a little aura-bot. Having him run Leer Case (15% damage), Victarios (10% ms), and Kingslayer (Fortify and Culling) was too good for me to pass up. This is when I started using Path of Building and with my gear, I was at around 4.5M DPS per sentinel.

3) Increasing DPS
Realizing that I wanted to achieve more DPS for more content, I switched from using Cold Point daggers to using a 2H staff (which provides 90%ish minion damage, 5% for them to deal double-damage, 2 to all spell skills, 3 to all physical skills, and the benchcraft to give 28% increased attack speed). This first iteration with the staff had roughly 7M DPS per sentinel but as I ventured into my first double-beyond map, I got destroyed and even though I could kill everything, I couldn't live long enough to clear.

4) Improve survivability by maxing block on staff
Knowing that I could kill the content made it even more difficult to realize I couldn't "complete" the content. I switched around the tree to take many attack and spell block nodes (bastion of hope providing lots of good bonus'). This change dropped the DPS to around 5.5M but provided a bit more survive.

5) Realizing that shield block is much better than staff block
Even though I could survive more damage being received with the staff block, I couldn't really stand in their tanking like I wanted and I would get spike to 10% HP and be running away trying to life-pot/regen back up. After speaking to a friend he alerted me that shields have "Recover 5% life when you block" and it had enabled him to do a whole lot of blocking with high block. This sent me down the path of converting from using the 2H staff to using a 1H weapon and shield (with the shield having 5% life on block). This is where my build currently is and I think it is the best of both DPS and tankiness. I will go through how I set up the bits and why below.

Equipment (explained):

Spoiler

- Helmet:

Spoiler

Elder bone helmet is a must because of the minion life and nearby enemies take 9% increased damage. What I also found out was that redeemer has reduced mana reservation which allows you to run more auras (yay)! The helmets pretty self explanitory. The only two "swappable" mods would be resistance imo.

- Chest:

Spoiler

Because this build uses BV, it means we are normally in the thick of things fighting. This lead me to Redeemer's "Nearby Enemies are Blind" which allowed me to remove the "Blind on Hit" from my gloves. Besides that, the armor is self-explanitory, as much HP and res as possible!

- Gloves:

Spoiler

These are probably the most flexible piece of armor that we have. In my current configuration I have BV in my gloves so the faster casting is nice but the main thing we want here is filling holes, taking as much life as possible, and getting that redeemer "Minions deal 30% increased damage" mod.

- Boots:

Spoiler

These are strictly built to help give me as much survive as possible. Prior to this league I didn't realize evade and dodge were different, but the boots have 1 open resistance suffix, and then add 10% dodge to attack/spell hits while also proc'n elusive when we crit (to further increase dodge chance).

- Rings:

Spoiler

This build needs Circle of Guilt for the mana reservation (for more auras!) and the increased sentinel damage is a huge bump. I highly recommend getting curse enemies with vulnerability and arcane surge as it allows you to curse with BV and arcane surge automatically when you hit.

- Amulet:

Spoiler

The amulet gives huge bonus' from the annointments, gem leveks, and most importantly Pride aura having reduced mana reservation. The important 3 mods on this are +1 to phys skill gems, +1 to str skill gems, and 30% pride mana reservation. Annoint charisma for more mana reservation savings!

- Belt:

Spoiler

I upgraded to head hunter but there are plenty of really good mods you could run on an influenced stygian with a minion gem. Before the head hunter I was running armor, T1 flat life, T1 % life (hunter mod) and 3 resistances. There are other mods like chance to double armor, % armor, and such that are also super useful in this slot if you don't have HH.

- Weapon - Wand:

Spoiler

Convoking wands are the only want that have Minions have increased attack speed as a actual suffix (not to be confused with the benchcraft which goes on many others at a lower %). This was me min-maxing but basically the minion damage, +1 to spell gems, +1 to phys skill gems, and minions have increased attack speed are the most important. This also seemed like the best place to put aspect of the spider as trying to get any elemental resistance on the wand (minus chaos) is a PITA because of damage mods.

- Shield:

Spoiler

I chose an Ezomyte tower shield for the implicit 40 life, but potentially that isn't required. The most imporant pieces are the 3 suffixes: 15% reduced mana reservation for socketed gems, 12% chance to block spell damage (allows us to take back nodes on the tree for max spell block), and recover 5% life when you block (huge for survivability). Potentially for prefixes you could luck into +2 to max ele res (I did not and spent so much making this shield I just wanted to be done) so it just became a huge HP booster (177 flat life, with 10% life).

Skill gems (explained):

Spoiler

- Helmet (4 sockets):
* Raise Spectre: Being in the helmet slot gives it the +3 to minion gems, and +1 from the wand's spell skills. This (with a 21 summon spectre) brings it to 25 and gives us a third spectre!
* Animate Guardian: Similar to spectre we want it as high level as possible but also want the Socketed Gems supported by lvl 20 minion life to keep him alive.
* Carrion Golem: Gives a nice bump in DPS to our sentinels and we get a golem anyway so why not!
* Meat shield: We don't want these things dying (especially our AG) so this is to keep them alive and have them next to us at all times. Being "Defebsuve" allows us to be affected by the AG's fortify all the time

For my three spectres I use two Arena Masters (20% increased movement, attack speed, cast speed stacking cast) and one They of Tul (20% dodge attack/spell snowglobe).

- Armor (6 sockets):
* Herald of Purity: Only 1 skill here and lets support it to give it more damage!
* I found the best DPS supports (awaken for even more DPS!) to be:
+ Multistrike
+ Brutality
+ Impale
+ Melee Physical Damage
+ Minion Damage

- Wand (3 sockets):
* Enduring Cry: instant cast while moving from tree
* Dash: movement skill, pretty much #1 with second wind
* Second Wind: gives us more enduring cries and 2 charges on dash!

- Shield (3 sockets):
Taking advantage of the 15% mana reduction on socketed gems we put our highest mana consuming gems:
* Skitterbots (20%), huge DPS boost from shock and the slow from chilled enemies is nice
* Flesh and Stone (15%): huge DPS boost and maim's our enemies
* Pride (14%): huge DPS boost from enemies take more physical damage

With my gear, the reservation is drastrically reduced. It takes mana reservation from 105% (30 + 25 + 50) to 49% (20 + 15 + 14). If we could get a 4th socket on that shield, it would be great to slot in dread banner for more mana savings.

- Gloves (4 sockets):
* Blade Vortex: what spawns our HoP sentinels. I put on gloves because gloves have faster casting gem support and it helps keeping up BV.
* Unleashed Support: Gives us 3 BV rings per cast! Yay!
* Awakened Curse On Hit: because I wanted back the points for Whispers of Doom I put lvl 5 gem to give an additional curse from supported skill.
* Punishment: The 2nd aura to apply, the curse of -20% to physical damage reduction is the big bonus. From my understanding the other buffs aren't that useful as it requires something to hit you...

- Boots (4 sockets):
* CWDT: Triggers our 2 linked skills IC and convocation
* Immortal Call: I chose this over molten shell and steelskin as I reduce nearly 90% of incoming damage with my endurance charges and flasks up, which is the max. IC gives elemental reductions too!
* Convocation: bring my minions to destory whatever hit me and give them some life regen! Great for keeping the Spectres and AG alive!
* Dread Banner: This helps our minions to impale enemies for more damage. This is just stashed here because its so useful for our build and doesn't take as much mana as the others in the shield.

Tree (explained):

Spoiler

Goals:
So my main goals of this tree were to:
- Max Block (to maximum 5% life on block)
- Instant Warcry - so we can cast enduring cry while moving every 4.5 seconds for a 2k over 1 second heal
- Maximize reduced mana reserved - for more auras!
- Maximize the higher percentage life nodes
- Take minion damage / life where convenient and good "bang for buck"
- My build runs 1 Elegant Hubris which provies two "Slum Lord" notables provide 80% minion damage each. This provides my tree with 160% minion damage for 7 nodes (2 to the jewel slot, 2 to 1 node (top) and 3 to the other node (bottom).

Cluster Jewels:
- Large:
* I found that the best damage came from Call to the Slaughter, Feasting Fiends, and Rotten Claws
* The final suffix should provide your build with whatever you might need (I needed dex when I got it)

- Medium:
* Best damage is provided by Cult-Leader and Disciples
* Similar to the large, the two suffixes should provide you with whatever you might need, resistance and stats in my case

- Small:
* Fettle by far gives the most life.
* Making the small gem 3 node instead of 2 node lets us take full advantage of the flat life and other suffixes the gem has.

If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!