[3.4] Null's Agony - Another Agony Crawler Necro with a Twist

- Agony Crawler from Herald of Agony: You'll need to do your best to keep it as close to 40 stacks of virulence as possible at all times to achieve maximum damage. To do this, you'll need attack speed, chance to poison, and lots of hits.



- Null's Inclination: This is the "twist" of the build, and will constantly generate SRS while mapping, as well as keep Flesh Offering up at all times (more on this later). At the time of posting, I'm the highest level Null's Build in Delve (nevermind that there are only 5 of us... https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds?item=Nulls-Inclination)



- Dexterity Scaling: I decided to throw another curveball at this build and go the Dex scaling route. This opens up a few interesting gearing options and helps with mitigate some other issues you'd normally come across.



- Defense/Survivability: This build stacks Evasion, Blind, Spell Dodge, Regen, Life Gain on Hit, Arctic Armor, and Range behind meatshields to stay safe.



Brings us to a total 83 LGoH.



All naturally occurring defenses, no flasks.

Unlike many minion builds, this build requires you to actively attack your targets. Since you're not doing any damage yourself, your main objective is to "paint" the target/direction of targets you'd like your Crawler to hit.

You'll want to keep some distance from your target, and shoot just past them with Tornado Shot, or right at them with Barrage. You generally want to try to position yourself so that the Crawler is either behind you shooting past you, or right in front of/next to you shooting away from you. You don't usually want to find yourself in the position of having a monster between you and the Crawler but it certainly does happen.

In packs, the Life Gain on Hit will feel like old Vaal Pact, but it can become an issue against a single target. You'll want to try to make sure whatever you're fighting is Blinded, either via your Stibnite flask, or a Blind on Hit Minion jewel (or both). You can use your Sulphur flask to create Consecrated Ground, and rely on your regen to fill in the gaps. Combining all of these and facetanking bosses often works out relatively well, especially if you have Vaal Grace up.

There will be times when the Crawler is poorly positioned, such as against a wall or through a doorway, and you'll have to practice resetting it and managing it's position while leveling to make sure it doesn't get you killed. Occasionally it will get completely stuck (like down a ledge or across a gap) and you'll have to get far enough away from it or let it despawn to get it back to you. Convocation might work in this case, but I don't know if it works with the crawler, and I'm too stubborn to try it now.

Mana can be an issue in this build, my current gear level mitigates it almost entirely but you'll definitely want to make sure you're thinking about it throughout the leveling process. Mana gained on hit works great, - mana cost jewelry (since your attack is only a 4L), and clarity should mostly resolve the issue, but you might find yourself at 0 mana if there aren't many monsters around and you're shooting fast.

* For Mapping, the only mod I actively avoid is No Life or Mana Regeneration. It's both scary to not regen life, since it's a significant part of our defenses, and it's also really annoying to have to swap in a mana flask to fill up your pool every once in a while. You can run Chance to Avoid Poison maps, but it's a direct nerf to your damage. Other than that everything is runnable, including both reflects, and no leech.

TL;DR:
- Paint targets
- Manage Crawler position
- Keep an eye on Mana issues
- Avoid No Regen maps, be wary of Chance to Avoid Poison

I'll start this section by first saying I have lot of practice and experience with all of the boss fights (except Delve bosses), I wouldn't expect the same results from someone new to the game/bosses.

Bosses Killed:
- Red Elder Guardians (all deathless, but some are not consistent)
- Red Elder (deathless, easy)
- Shaper Guardians (all deathless, with some tough map mods, experience comes into play here)
- Shaper (deathless, easy, but a bit slow in spots, experience needed)
- Uber Atziri (one death, avoidable, you can shoot the mirror form!)
- Uber Elder (NOT RECOMMENDED, 5 attempts, 2 successful, work in progress)

Maps:
- Cleared every map (haven't done Beachhead) in the game with ease, including Vaal Temple with dangerous mods

Delve:
- Currently at depth 425, relatively safe, don't die often
- Killed Abyss Delve boss at depth monster level 75 while around level 80 (deathless)
- Killed Vaal City Delve boss at depth monster level 80 (deathless)

The main idea for gearing is to get pieces that either scale dex, or scale off of dex.

Main 6L:
1) Herald of Agony (Try to get level 21, 40% inc attack speed, ~11% more damage)
2) Vile Toxins (enemies will always have >10 poisons, and lvl 21 gives 5% more damage)
3) Minion Damage
4) Vicious Projectiles
5) Pierce (helps with clear)
6) Maim

It's still not 100% clear the exact phys/chaos ratio of the Agony Crawler (ZiggyD says 60/40 respectively in his video here: https://youtu.be/8Ax1_cOgcjM?t=1m25s). I think Maim would be outclassed by a level 4 empower or Damage on Full Life, but I'm not completely sure. Maim would probably also work well in a main attack 6L for bossing, with Empower in the Crawler, as you'd still get the extra phys taken bonus.

You could also probably replace Pierce when fighting bosses, but I haven't fleshed out that idea yet. Depending on the amount of Chaos conversion, Void Manipulation could be a good support.

Also, the DPS difference for a lvl 21 HoAg vs lvl 20 is massive. Not only is it about an 11% increase in base phys, it's also up to 40% increased attack speed, since you jump up 1% per Virulence. You also get a small damage buff, but that isn't as significant. Further levels continue along the ~11% more damage path, but they won't get the jump in attack speed.

Clear 5L:
1) SRS (would like lvl 21, but not necessary)
2) Vile Toxins
3) Minion Damage
4) Melee Physical Damage
5) Melee Splash (this is for clear)

Pretty typical here, with the addition of Vile Toxins which just works so well with this build. I might consider trying Animate Weapon here too.

Attack 4L:
1) Tornado Shot / Barrage (keep low level for mana cost)
2) Life Gain on Hit (21/20 or 20/23 preferred)
3) Poison (gets us to 80% chance to poison)
4) Greater Multiple Projectiles (quality important

This setup's goal is to create as many poison stacks as possible. Tornado Shot works well as a blanket clear option, while Barrage is best for most bosses, since it hits single targets more consistently. LGoH is our best means of survival, as we don't do any real damage to leech with. In packs (Delve) it's very significant, but it definitely drops off in usefulness agains bosses, but we have other means to buff healing (Regen, Vitality Watcher's Eye)

Vaal Grace 2L:
1) Vaal Grace
2) Increased Duration

This gives us 13.7 seconds of Vaal Grace with our Ascendancy, great for tough situations.

Other gems (Don't need to be linked to anything):
Summon Stone Golem (Taunts, gives good regen)
Summon Holy Relic (Good regen while attacking)
Clarity (I keep it at lvl 1, you can level it a bit)
Vitality
Arctic Armour (It's Free!, don't use if you don't have The Perfect Form)
Blink Arrow

The Golem and Holy Relic can be swapped out for a CwDT setup (probably linked with Inc Dur), but I haven't felt I've needed one yet, maybe for Delve 400+. Clarity can be useful for keeping up mana at higher levels, but I use it at level 1 with the - mana cost Watcher's Eye.

PoB: https://pastebin.com/i92bTdPN

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMDAAQHBLMI9A-rEFERLREvFScWbxa_Fy8YVhhdGjgbyBzcIvQlISaVJy8o-iycLOIy0TWSNj06WDrGOtg8LUGHRUdFnUqfSshMs1BCUzVTUlVLVcZV1lnzWpFg-GHiYqxi9GTnZlRmnma6aHRo8mpDaqxr22wLbIxtGW1sbqpvO3Gycg94DXvDfIN8u4CkgseDX4PMg9uJvIqvjDaMsY6-jxqQEZBVksGTJ5RvmE2YrZrgm4qdqqEvogCofaqprfGvbLVItfK3PriTvOq-T76KwBrAZsWKz93QH9OP0_vYvdpi37Djautj6-7sg-yK7-vwH_GK8kX56PrS_gr-jw==?accountName=Boomdog83&characterName=FiftyShadesOfAgony

I leveled to about 60 as Arc, but that was at league start when Tabulas and Quill Rains weren't an option. I would start by heading to the good minion nodes by Templar. Then down towards the life wheel, and over to Shadow last. Have your dex conversion jewels ready once you start pathing to the next one, as you'll not want to waste that potential Dex.

Options:
- Ideally, I would like a reduced reservation enchant on my helmet either for Vitality or Herald of Agony. That would let me drop Sovereignty and get some points back, most likely for life.

- I've considered dropping the Shadow area and going down into the Duelist start instead, but I haven't found an outcome I really like, since you'd likely end up with fewer jewel sockets.

- If you can get absolutely crazy resist jewelry/jewels, you might not need to spend the points to get the jewel socket under the Scion. That was only worth it to me due to being next to 66 total resistance.

My builds are always a work in progress, I like to push one or two builds as far as possible every league, rather than stopping once they're "good enough". Here are some of the ideas in my head for pushing this build further.

- Figure out true best links for HoAg: This one really just requires some concrete evidence of damage types, and sitting down and doing the math. However I think there's some real potential for damage increases here, especially against bosses.

- Helm Enchant: As I've mentioned a few times, getting an applicable helm enchant would be a pretty big boost for this build, but I'm not sure I like Lab enough to care.

- Corrupt Null's: Since they're so cheap, and you only need a 5L, getting a good corruption shouldn't be too hard. Ideally, looking for: Additional Arrow, Chance to Gain Frenzy, Attack Speed, Blind, and non-fire ele damage in that order.

- Filling out Poison chance: Chance to Poison currently sits at 80%, and while I'm usually at max Virulence stacks, an additional 20% chance to poison would make it easier to keep it higher during tough fights, like Uber Elder.

- Bossing Bow: A separate 6L to replace Null's when fighting tough bosses like Uber Elder. I gave an example of one I was messing with in the gear section, which would add some supplemental damage, although not really as much as I'd hoped. I'd like to try to craft one with 3 - 5 Cold Damage per 10 Dex, but then I'd need some other gear to make it worth it. Probably one with chance to poison and good attack speed would be best, the 6L alone would allow me to add 2 more gems to my main Virulence building attack, like Maim, LMP, Lesser Poison or Withering Touch.