[3.22] Herald of Ash Wormblaster!! - Smooth mapper - Decent Single target - Solid defence

Build Showcase!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS-5ANJQh4c


For the fellow build rats that can stomach a 26min video, I have made an explanation video where I go in-depth into the mechanics. This is not indented to be a build guide rather a mechanic showcase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9mhQW7sRRA


I have made a PoB here: https://pobb.in/fL9WfOxmVxJT


Basic Build premise:
-Using discharge we blow up 5 jars full of worms for charge generation and herald of ash aoe consistency.
-Big discharge damage with Easy charge sustain from worms and The Annihilating Light
-Bereks respite for easy 50% shock
-Solid defense with ~90% phs as elemental and 90% max res + Defiance of Destiny amulet for small hit immunity.

*Disclaimers*

Herald of Ash has to be the most buggy, unexplained skill in the game:

Firstly, the skill states that it only scales with damage over time, but what about the 40% increased Herald of Ash Damage helmet enchant? Does this imply that the description is wrong and that it also scales with herald damage? Perhaps the enchant has been doing nothing this entire time.

Even path of building has no idea how to calculate HoA's damage. It drastically overstates the damage as it also includes sources of elemental, fire, and generic damage mods, despite not working with these as per the skill's description. (this is also very apparent in game, I have reported this to the PoB team.)

The damage is very inconsistent; sometimes, things die basically instantly, and sometimes it doesn't deal damage at all, despite having a clear indication of being in the burning damage AoE. My best estimation is that sometimes, the herald of ash explosion damage is not registered at all. I don't know if this is due to worms or the skill being buggy. Perhaps it has something to do with the DoT cap.

As a result, although it is very easy to scale to DoT cap with this build, the single target damage can be all over the place and often requires very precise placement of worms, along with the luck that the server deceives to register the damage.


But the damage is really good when it works, and it's a consistently good mapper for a pretty cheap budget.

Due to so many avenues to scale damage, we can focus more on solid defence and utility, such as elemental damage taken conversion and 90% max res.

This is the main reason why I'm using Cheifton, but you could play many different classes with this build.

Gimmick build, play at your own risk

I have made manual changes to the calculations to exclude sources of generic/elemental/fire damage as I am confident these do not work and that PoB is incorrect.

I have unticked shock because I'm not 100% sure it's working properly with Berek's respite. I'm mostly not sure if the worms have the 50% shock applied from the on-kill spread before the discharge damage applies to the remaining worms.

It doesn't matter anyway because we hit the DoT cap extremely easily. But again, like I said, this is only if the stars align, both the worms hit, and the server registers the damage.

Sources of inspiration:

- u/Sjatar: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/15u1gqw/paint_build_chieftain_with_a_red_dream_of_worms/

- u/BumbleBurryPie: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/10uz08l/i_resurrected_the_wormblaster_please_dont_nerf/

>Firstly, the skill states that it only scales with damage over time, but what about the 40% increased Herald of Ash Damage helmet enchant?

It simply replaces the internal code, if you will from "HoA deals X dmg" to "HoA deals Y dmg"

There's no scaling

"

It simply replaces the internal code, if you will from "HoA deals X dmg" to "HoA deals Y dmg"

There's no scaling

Interesting. Does this imply that other helmet enchants also work differently than the standard "increased" mods?

Also what do you think is the case for increased "herald" damage such the damage granted from herald clusters. Does it scale herald of ash or no.

Its definitely not an intuitive skill.

You'd have to get someone from GGG to explain, as you have figured out.

It is a damage application, so it does not scales off Ignite, ailment, spell, area, hit, and a few other things. What this means in GGG terms is that the "hit" has already been computed in the chain of damage scaling, so there is a catch-all that prevents things that happen "on hit" like applying curses, applying status effects, etc can no longer occur. Burning is something that the game only knows about only after the hit has been computed.

Hinekora, Death scales off fire and burning, so the tree and items you use should be maxing out those modifiers

I made a PoB that uses most of the items I have, plus some I could get off trade today fairly cheaply.

You use gems I don't have, and so I didn't include them.

https://pobb.in/UNeLMRKjn5Ai.

Let me know where I messed up, since like I said I still need to buy a few things to test.

Another PoB (with Supreme Ego Impossible Escape)

https://pobb.in/zZ9VI0d5trAB

Another (without Impossible Escape)

https://pobb.in/BPfq6wt1xq1I

Hey dude, So I had a look and here are a few points:

-Your helmet is missing the massive 30% more ele damage essence mod which is a huge bummer. In fact I would go as far as saying if you don't have that mod with hypothermia (or conc effect). then there is no point really using discharge in the helm slot. You could get way more damage putting it in your chest slot (especially if you can get +gems implicit)

-Increased area is a QoL mod for the helmet but not really needed. Area is not so important for discharge itself rather the herald of ash. Discharge already gets massive % AoE from the extra charges so increased area doesn't do much at all.

-There is a lot of inefficient pathing on the tree in my opinion.
You are far better off trying to get 2 large passive cluster jewel on your tree.
TO achieve this you have to be very ruthless with the passives you cut.

- Fire damage is not actually super amazing as it only scales the fire portion of discharge. Herald of ash gets no damage from % increased fire damage.

-You really would want to go crit if you can, but to be consistent you need the + base crit to spell mod on the helmet (along with hypo and % more ele damage)

- You get huge value form the crit mastery that gives 150% crit chance on full life enemies (worms always full life) since the overkill damage is from the worms.

- I found that 2 large passives with sadist is basically enough % elemental damage for discharge that you basically don't need much other sources, and would much rather say crit multi.

-DoT multi is nice for herald of ash but don't go crazy on the tree for it.

-A lot of % increased damage over time I was getting was from the missing 2 medium clusters for herald that give 80% damage to herald of ash on one single cluster passive (Lasting impression).

-Basically your discharge does about 1/5th of the damage mine did and my build was far from optimized. I think to get better number you need to go crit.
If you cant make a better helm, better off using the chest slot for discharge my guess.

- Not only that but my build had ~160% extra increased damage over time compared to yours thanks to the extra clusters. Remember that % increased fire damage does not scale herald of Ash.

-The Supreme ego impossible escape is an excellent choice, but was way out of budget for me. It should be really efficient and free up the anoint slot nicely.

yeah, you make valid points, esp the helm.

This is a Chieftain Hinekora, Death's Fury build, not a "discharge" build. All I need is a) Infernal Cry up, or a tatt proc, and b) Discharge to deal enough dmg to a single mob to kill it if Frostblink/Consecrated Path CoMK did not kill 1 thing.

It's janky for sure, but I also assure you even wo Impossible Escape I'm clearing 8 mod maps w the setup I have if you check my paperdoll

Again, I thank you for looking into this and I'll take a lot of your advice.

<edit>



And a Malevolence Watcher's Eye.

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Added another tree that kinda sorta has another large cluster, and added a Lethal Pride. Sill uses the gear I had, tree requires an Uber "Herald of Ash" mana reservation enchant, and a ilvl 84 3 passsive mana reservation small cluster.

https://pobb.in/mGtIdeTI2Ps9

Uses 2 of the "Fasting" node jewels, since you can slot in the Chilling Presence of your choice as 2nd jewel.

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Another build, doesn't use any Impossible Escape, and no 35% effect jewels. Also had to sacrifice the +charge wheel/Lethal Pride. Needs boots w +2 max FR to save a pt.

https://pobb.in/BQWrBfVzJwAL

Build req

* Phasing somewhere - perhaps a tree that incorporates a "Precise Technique" Impossible Escape if you don't want to use a jewel. The trees I've worked out all need to be optimized so you get a lot of fire dmg

* The better suited to a RF-style build your build is, the better your clusters can be.

* Savage hits are bad, duh

* Quite a few map mods are just annoying af- charge steal, minus max res, regen, leech, reflect

* Almost all of the other map mods are great

* Sextants are fantastic for this build, Mobs have increased AoE, Boss Harb, Boss bodyguards

* Game has some weird ass shit where unique mobs need to be precisely in range of a wurmblast

"

Build req

* Phasing somewhere - perhaps a tree that incorporates a "Precise Technique" Impossible Escape if you don't want to use a jewel. The trees I've worked out all need to be optimized so you get a lot of fire dmg

So phasing is easy to solve, you can get chance on kill on Abyss jewels.
Given the massive amount of kills we do from worms. You can consider this 100% uptime of phasing for close to free.


Also regarding your helmet.
The burning damage is kind of a wasted mod right? Unless you want to scale the discharge's ignite for whatever reason. I don't really see a huge reason since herald of ash can do WAY more DoT compared to the ignite so may as well focus on discharge's hit to therefore increased herald of ash's damage via worm overkill.

"

Slammu wrote:

"

Build req

* Phasing somewhere - perhaps a tree that incorporates a "Precise Technique" Impossible Escape if you don't want to use a jewel. The trees I've worked out all need to be optimized so you get a lot of fire dmg

So phasing is easy to solve, you can get chance on kill on Abyss jewels.
Given the massive amount of kills we do from worms. You can consider this 100% uptime of phasing for close to free.

Also regarding your helmet.
The burning damage is kind of a wasted mod right?

Um... this is your thread so, I should have made my own. But I stole a lot of ideas from you.

My builds/trees are Hinekora, Death's Fury builds, which are triggered from wurms and Discharge.

Hinekora, Deaths Fury scales off the ignites from Burning, as well as increasing its' proc chance/rate. And I personally like Anom Hypothermia, cause you can annoit Winter's Embrace to help w clearing.

I didn't want to spend another 27 or so on a helm more suited to your tree, which has more charges and higher Discharge dmg, since I was happy w the pop rate of the tree I posted.

Your build tree is prolly better, even still I kept thinking more aoe was the only real issue w mine.

As for "finding Phasing," that was for the tree that uses Forbidden Flame.

The great thing about your build is it can be modified in many, many ways.

Thanks for responding!