[3.12] Guardian Support. 17 auras. Super tanky, insane damage & defense boost.

¡Hey! Welcome to my Guardian Support guide!
In this guide I will cover everything you need to know about supporting in PoE.

Note: This guide is focused on the “Aurabot” version. They are focused on buffing your carry’s damage and defense through auras.
There are other different supports that focus on 1 specific thing. For example:

Mana Guardian: Focused on stacking as much mana as he can, then reserve all that mana to give insane Energy Shield to him and allies thanks to the Radiant Faith ascendancy node.

Discipline bot: Focused on stacking as many Stalwart Commander as he can to have an insane % of aura effect and give insane Energy Shield to everyone.

Before starting, I suggest you to read all the sections for the detailed information about everything you need to know when playing support.



PoB

I recommend reading information and gear sections for those who are new on support builds, but for those who are lazy or are experienced on playing support here's the PoB.

Normal budget Mana Guardian: https://pastebin.com/sW5cthzB

Added 3 leveling trees covering the early acts if you level with a friend as a carry.

What to look for:
1. Mana reserved nodes, to use as many auras as you can.
2. Energy shield nodes, to transition to CI as early as you can.
3. Other nodes from tree.
4. Clusters.

Remember this is for those who do acts with a friend as a carry!


"
I wont make a leveling tree for other leveling methods since there are a lot out there, you can just use any of them.



Pros/Cons:

Pros:
+ Very tanky.
+ Big defense boost.
+ Big damage boost.
+ Smooth leveling with minions.
+ Can support nearly every build.
+ OP combined with an aurabot.

Cons:
- Need some expensive unique items (Some leagues are cheap).
- Not everyone likes this gameplay.
- Feels weak on budget.
- Hard to gear up on league start (but possible).
- Need to change the tree if leveled with minions.


Changes

In this section I will put all changes through the different leagues.
All changes will be for the Guardian support version in this guide!


Versions

Guardian:
- More focused on defense but good damage boost.

Ascendant:
- Balanced in damage / defense boost.

Necromancer:
- More offensive version, less tanky.

I will try to make a guide for other versions in the future.


Stats

Coming soon…


Leveling

League start:
For league start I suggest playing a minion build until you can buy some of the gear and start to use some auras.

There a different ways to level this build:

Carry: Getting carried by a friend (You need a friend with good damage for this, hard for league start). Best option if you don’t want to change your tree and can be fast.

Minions: This is the best in my opinion, minions are super good early on and scale good.
Different setups that work pretty good:
· Smite / Holy Relic / Zombies / Herald of Purity
· SRS / Zombies / Holy Flame Totem
· Zombies / Skeletons

Spells: I haven't tried to play this since minions are just too good, but you can level with Freezing pulse, Holy Flame Totem or Wave of Conviction

When you get some currency and leveling gear, you can just level with pretty much everything you feel confortable, with some good gear and gems you can even just go the support tree and you won't have much problems.

"
If you try to level this build with another option on your own and want to share with others I can put it here!



Ascendancy

1: Radiant Crusade
2: Unwavering Crusade
3: Radiant Faith
4: Unwavering Faith




Bandits

Kill all for 2 points. All support builds depend on tree and gear, so those 2 points are so good.


Gear

"
Note: Don't look at gems here, for gem setup go Gems section, they will be updated there, not here.

Budget

Weapon

1: Ephemeral Edge for a big ES boost (for you, not allies)


2: Rare weapon with Auras from your skills grant 2% increased damage to you and allies


In my opinion, I prefer using Ephemeral Edge, since it gives us a lot of ES, and as a Mana Guardian, we look for more defensive stats, but if you want to give your carry a bit more damage you can use the rare weapon.


Shield

Rare shield with "Socketed gems have 15% reduced mana reserved"


If it’s league start and you don’t have much currency or there isn’t any shield with 15%, you can start with a shield with 10%.


Body Armour

Victario's influence is mandatory, no doubt here.



Amulet

Rare Amulet with "Reduced Mana Reserved" and some "ES"


Annoint

Champion of the Cause is mandatory for the "Reduced Mana Reserved" and "Effect of Non-Curse Auras"



Oils:



Catalyst

Use Fertile Catalyst for "Life and Mana Modifiers"




Rings

Rare Rings with as much "ES" as you can get.



Gloves

Shaper’s Touch are mandatory, but you can start with a pair of Rare Gloves with ES until you can afford Shaper’s touch.



Helmet

Alpha’s Howl is mandatory and can’t be replaced with anything. We need the "Reduced Mana Reserved" and "+2 to socketed aura gems". Cannot be frozen helps a lot aswell.



Boots

Skyforth are BiS and mandatory, but they’re expensive, until you can afford buying Skyforth, you can use Sin Trek or Victario’s Flight.



Belt

For belt, we can use either Bated Breath or Auxium, they’re both good.



Flasks

Bases:
Quicksilver
Granite
Stibnite
Jade
Basalt

Mods:
Prefix:
Whatever you like the most, I usually use Experimenter's (Increased duration)

Suffix:
of Dousing (Immune to Ignite)
of Grounding (Immune to Shock)
of Heat (Immune to Freeze and Chill)
of Reflexes (Increased % Evasion Rating)
of Adrenaline (Movement speed during flask effect)




Jewels

Normal jewels:
We need Conqueror's efficency with "1% reduced mana reserved" corrupt.
Any rare jewel with "1% reduced mana reserved" corrupt.
Healthy mind or Spirited response with "1% reduced mana reserved" corrupt.
Intuitive leap (Corruption on this jewel is expensive, so you can work without corruption, but if you get "1% reduced Mana Reserved" or "Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you" it's perfect).


Upgrades:
You can get a Watcher's Eye with "Gain #% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield while affected by Clarity" if you have Intuitive leap with mana reserved.
If you have both jewels, you can drop the rare jewel with mana reserved and replace for the Watcher's Eye jewel.


If you can't afford Intuitive Leap corruption or the Watcher's Eye, antoher great upgrade would be getting a rare jewel with "% increased Maximum Energy Shield" with "1% reduced Mana Reserved".

Clusters:
2 Large Clusters with Vengeful Commander


4 Medium Clusters with the following mods:
Pure Commander (2)
Vengeful Commander (1)
Stalwart Commander (2)
Replenishing Presence (1)
First Among Equals (1)
Pure Might (1)



"
Early in league, go for 1 node medium clusters until you can afford 2 nodes clusters.


3 small clusters with:
Pure Aptitude (1)
Pure Guile (1)
Stalwart Commander (1)





Expensive

"
Note: None of this items have been crafted with Harvest!

Shield

For shield you can upgrade it by getting more ES on it:



- Flat Energy shield.
- % Increased energy shield.
- Socketed gems have 15% reduced mana reserved.

Those are the important ones, then you can get any other mod you want like "+2% to all maximum Resistances".


Amulet

To get a better amulet, first look for Amber base, then look for the basic mod as "Reduced Mana Reserved". Then you should look for flat "energy shield" and "% increased maximum energy shield".



Strength can be a good mod to look for in our jewellery to scale our ES.
If you want you can even add Shaper influence to add "% increased movement speed", but not mandatory.


Rings

To get better rings, first look for Moonstone or Unset base, then you should look for flat "energy shield" and "% increased maximum energy shield". (Crusader base)


Helmet

To upgrade Alpha's Howl, you can go for any "Reduced Mana Reserved" enchant like:
Hatred has #% reduced Mana Reservation
Discipline has #% reduced Mana Reservation
Or any other.


Belt

To get a better belt, first look for Crystal base, then you should look for flat "energy shield" and "% increased maximum energy shield". (Crusader base)

You can get "% increased Energy Shield Recovery rate" from Crusader influence aswell if you want, not necessary at all, we alredy have a decent recovery rate.





Gems

"
All auras should be 20% quality for AoE (Area of Effect), so you don't need to be super close to your carry!


Body armour:
Anger - Vitality - Hatred - Vaal Haste - Wrath - Zealotry

______________________________________________________________________________

Helmet:
Purity of Ice - Purity of Fire - Purity of Lightning - Vaal Discipline

______________________________________________________________________________

Gloves:
Flame Dash - Precision (Level 3) - Steelskin

______________________________________________________________________________

Boots:
Portal - Purity of elements - Clarity (Level 4) - Dread Banner

______________________________________________________________________________

Weapon:
Shield Charge - Fortify - Faster Attacks

______________________________________________________________________________

Shield:
Malevolence - Determination - Vaal Grace

______________________________________________________________________________

"
For Vaal versions, the important ones are Discipline, Grace and Haste. You can use Vaal version of puritys if you want, but I don't like to use them since you need lot of buttons and they charge slowly, and we need vaal discipline asap when maping / delving.


"
For 4th link on gloves before warcry reworks we used Rallying Cry, but now it's useless for support, so you can use any other skill gem you like. Enduring Cry is good for defensive option (Use it on bosses only) for 3 endurance charges in fights.

When I find the best option for it, i'll update gem section and remove this quote, until then you can use any skill.


Upgrades
The upgrades for this build is to get 21 23 gems.
Priority:
Purity (Ice, Fire, Lightning) -> Vaal discipline -> Vaal Haste / Vaal grace -> Damage auras -> Other auras -> Skill gems



FaQ

"
I'll be updating this section as I read questions.


· I'm leveling with minions, when do I need to swap?
1. If you and your carry feel confortable to do maps together without any problem of dmg / defense and you have some currency to buy early gear.
2. Remember you'll need some regrets to change!

· What auras to use first?
I would suggest to go for the defensive ones first, such as Puritys, discipline, determination, etc. Then go for the damage ones

· When should I swap to CI?
You should swap to CI when you get uberlab and have 3.5k+ ES.

· What items should I buy first?
The most important item here would be the amulet, because it save us like 400 mana to put more auras on, but it's one of the most expensive in this build, at least for league start, so I would suggest to go for the Victario's influence, alhpa's howl and the shield (You can start with a 10% mana reserved one, they're super cheap early on).


Conclusion
Thank you guys for reading my guide! I really hope you liked and it helped you. If you have any idea on how to improve the guide or have any suggestion about the build tell me and I'll take a look!
If you have any question you can message me in game (zzz199), reply this post or ask when I'm streaming!


Twitch
I try to play mana guardian every league since Delirium if i have a duo / group. Since I'm in a guild, I'm playing a lot with a partner and I play mostly support when playing with her.
https://www.twitch.tv/ZetaZ3ta
Last edited by zzz199 on Oct 5, 2020, 8:48:19 PM
Last bumped on Mar 7, 2021, 8:08:19 AM
Might want to rename your title to something little different, Mana Guardian was made back 3.9 and has been used with Herald of Agony, Seems like you trying for Aura or herald stacking Mana guardian. Your post is between the other two Mana Guardian builds and might throw some people off. I def interested what your making currently switching to stacker myself, but just wanted to give you heads up before some confusion.
PoB link broken, or it's my problem?
You should really change title, becouse this guide is about aurabot. Aurastack, is that build with nebulis etc and mana guardian has like 14k mana and gives alot es, but doesnt run many auras. I have played supports like 3 years and cant get over with title. :D
"
Stimels1 wrote:
PoB link broken, or it's my problem?


Hi, I tried link and it works for me, are you using PoB Fork? That might be a problem probably. Try to download PoB Fork from GitHub.
How do you deal with chaos damage?
"
zzz199 wrote:
Pros:
+ OP combined with an aurabot.

Huh? I thought THIS is the aurabot? :D


"
Hikistnyaicu wrote:
How do you deal with chaos damage?

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Chaos_Inoculation
"
zzz199 wrote:
"
Stimels1 wrote:
PoB link broken, or it's my problem?


Hi, I tried link and it works for me, are you using PoB Fork? That might be a problem probably. Try to download PoB Fork from GitHub.

No, I used the regular FOB, everything works now, thanks a lot :)

And one more question on the build:
Do skyforth with Zealot's Oath work?
"
Stimels1 wrote:
"
zzz199 wrote:
"
Stimels1 wrote:
PoB link broken, or it's my problem?


Hi, I tried link and it works for me, are you using PoB Fork? That might be a problem probably. Try to download PoB Fork from GitHub.

No, I used the regular FOB, everything works now, thanks a lot :)

And one more question on the build:
Do skyforth with Zealot's Oath work?


Apparently not:

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Skyforth
"
Energy Shield Regeneration converted from Life Regeneration via Zealot's Oath gets removed.
"
Wissle wrote:
"
zzz199 wrote:
Pros:
+ OP combined with an aurabot.

Huh? I thought THIS is the aurabot? :D

Yes! It is, but what I meant is that if you're playing with another aurabot (Ascendant) the Carry would be insane.
Guardian provides all defense for the carry and Acendant provides all damage for the carry.
Gurdian alredy boosts insane damage, but ascendant gives even more (Because of Necromancer ascendancy), so combined, it's the perfect combo.


"
Hikistnyaicu wrote:
How do you deal with chaos damage?

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Chaos_Inoculation

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