[3.14] [HCSSF] Herald Of Agony Raider (2 mil DPS) | 1000+ Life gained on hit /s | 8k+ Life
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Welcome to my first build guide.
Just to give a small background on myself, I've been playing HCSSF mostly for the past few years, first fell in love with the Herald of Agony skill in Metamorph where I played a Herald Of Agony max block gladiator. Just a quick disclaimer of my skill level, I'm consistently able to reach high 90s (multiple level 99 characters that are now dead) but have only managed to reach level 100 once (the current build). Note that I don't think getting to level 100 is very difficult, it simply requires a huge time investment and a level of self control to not attempt dangerous content. Herald of agony is a skill that requires very little investment for just enough damage to clear most content, allowing you to invest heavily into defensive mechanics. However, the play style is incredibly slow despite being a raider, and players who wish to zoom should probably look for a faster build. This build has been played to level 100 on HCSSF, so it should be a solid build all round. I did end up dying to uber elder due to inexperience more than anything, but it should also be a solid boss killer. Without further ado, let's get into the build.
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Levelling is by far the most difficult part of any Herald Of Agony build. The skill is not very good during the campaign and so requires a huge respec before endgame. You can level with whatever skill you wish, but I personally went with Toxic Rain, which doesn't require anything specific gear wise. While levelling, we can simply use a Silverbranch, even on a 4L, it will carry us through the campaign. Those who can't trade and don't have a Silverbranch, can use a bow with high attack speed. All other pieces of gear are simply there to fill resists and if you're lucky, some life. In order to ensure a smooth transition into Herald of Agony, grab one in act 2 as soon as you can and start levelling it in your offhand. Path Of Building Community Fork pastebin: https://pastebin.com/EEKJhuS8 The pastebin includes the leveling trees and the endgame SSF tree. You are free to play around with other ideas, some examples that I have attempted to tinker with are: Elder Helmet with +3 to minion skill gem level and supported by minion damage paired with a Kaom's heart (unfortunately this is a bit hard to obtain in SSF). Divine Flesh Keystone through glorious vanity. Any influenced Chest with +1 to Dex skill gems (by fossil crafting) and physical damage taken as x element. Respec guide
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The transition to Herald of Agony can be somewhat daunting for newer players as it requires a huge overhaul of the skill tree and gems and links, together with a switch in play style. During the initial transition, we can grab any one handed sword with a 1.55 base attack speed (sabre, cutlass, corsair sword) and throw the highest Essence of Fear we have on it. There are a few important nodes that are mandatory for the build to function, resolute technique and essence sap are needed so that we can run lancing steel without worrying about accuracy or mana costs. These are later respec'd out of when we are able to get a viridian jewel with +2 mana gained on hit, and multimodded weapon with hits cannot be evaded. Gear explanation:
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Weapon: In the weapon slot, we just need a high attack speed sword with an Essence of Fear slapped on it, we pray to RNGesus to grant us with poison chance or a high attack speed roll. Then craft trigger for desecrate, spirit offering and sniper's mark. Later on, multicrafting for hits cannot be evaded saves us the 4 points needed for resolute technique. Shield: It's possible to use something else, but the frenzy charges given to our Herald Of Agony gives us something like 25% more damage. That's hard to give up. If we were somehow able to keep spectres alive, we could drop this and use Saffell's frame, but I couldn't find a way to keep spectres alive. Helm: Life and resists. If we later find a high ilvl elder helm, we can craft it to put our main links into the helmet and use a kaom's heart instead. Body Armour: Good for overall tankiness if we can overcome the drawback of the negative resists. An alternative would be any influenced chest piece with their corresponding physical damage taken as x element/chaos damage. Boots: Life, resists and movement speed. Ideally we would prefer evasion bases. Gloves: Elder gloves to provide us with an extra link to fit in withering touch. This isn't really necessary, but the damage boost is quite significant. Amulet: Life and resists, gravepact is anointed since its the best all round node, but for single target, it might be better to get marked for death since culling strike is essentially 10% more damage, more than any other node could give. Ring: Life and resists. Ring: More life and resists. Belt: Even more life and resists. Gems:
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Replace Pierce with vile toxins for single target. Defensive Mechanics:
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55% attack dodge 45% spell dodge Wind Dancer 35% Physical Damage from hits taken as Lightning damage Fortify 8k+ life Ailment Immunity by virtue of being Raider High Life gained on hit through LGOH gem with Lancing Steel Video:
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https://youtu.be/QYH1KyrBaMU Unfortunately after I reached level 100 (which was my main goal for this league) I decided to do progressively more dangerous bosses until the character died (it died to Uber Elder, due to inexperience). Which I never ended up recording either. The only video I ended up recording was a single T16 Chimera map clear, but it should give a reasonable idea of how the build plays. Last edited by Ricerift on Jun 14, 2021, 8:31:18 AM Last bumped on Aug 14, 2021, 3:55:51 PM
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crazy
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thank you for the build :) awesome !
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Nice guide, and possibly getting a bit more of a spotlight with the top Ranger in the recent HCSSF Gauntlet being a Herald of Agony Raider:
https://poe.ninja/zizxshopifyrebellionclassgauntlethcssf/builds/char/inwardheel8/inwardPainChamp?i=1 (IIRC I remember them running Lancing Steel before swapping to Storm Brand as the poison trigger, but can't find the snapshot) | |
" The biggest issue with HOAG is single target if you don't run Holy Relic, which in the gauntlet he did not use. Fights take a long time especially fights with phases where you need to burst the target down before you get overwhelmed. One example veritania. Unless you spec into cluster jewels this build will keep suffering with single target. its great until red maps with basically a tabula and a few good good rolls on rare gear. Last edited by ClassicEnergy on Jun 23, 2021, 4:16:56 PM
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" He has an interesting take on the build, running Triad grip will probably give a heap of damage. The extra skill points on the weapon and amulet adds at least 25% more damage. I would personally prefer not to sacrifice a glove slot for Triad grip, and the LGOH from lancing steel is hard to give up imo. If I were to remake the build, I would actually sacrifice a lot of my dps, 2 mil is actually a lot more than is needed for HCSSF. I would most likely replace my shield with replica mistwall if I'm able to find it. I would even consider taking out Hatred to run a more defensive setup like cast when damage taken immortal call, and an ancestral call vigilant strike setup. Then I would be able to respec out of the reservation nodes and get some more life, or try and reach the fortify effect nodes. But alas, I don't have much time these days to play the game, so I'm unable to test out my theories. | |
" Are you serious, mate? I don't play Rider, but I do play Jugg HoAG since 3.8, and once you reach Lab and you got most of the gems, you can easily swap at lvl 31 and play Agony. The crawler literally rekts everything. It's the most easiest build to level up BEFORE maps, and most safest as well, of any other builds that exists in this game. And yea, I do play only HC as well. | |
" Bro look on the tree and show me where you can get minion nodes at level 31 as a ranger. If you're playing as a witch or templar with access to minion nodes, why would you ever level with HoAg when there's a thing called spectres, zombies, skeletons (literally any other minion skill is better than HoAg in the campaign). Then you're trying to tell me that respeccing to HoAg at level 31 as a jugg is better than just levelling as melee and respeccing in Blood Aqueduct. If you can't agree with me on the jugg part, you can agree with me that melee levelling is much better as a duelist. I'm not saying you can't respec to HoAg earlier. But I'm just saying, why would you? As jugg / duelist you have much more access to melee nodes than minion nodes, so melee is just better. As ranger / shadow, you have more access projectiles / mine nodes, so levelling with bows / mines is just better. As witch / templar, well, why would you level with minions in the first place, just play any caster build. And even if you really wanted to level with minions, just use skeletons / zombies / spectres / anything that isn't HoAg, and you'll level 2x faster. | |
" If we want to play minions we would go witch not raider, you are missing the point of this build |
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Just curious, when would you make the shift from leveling skill to the beginnings of end game HoAg?
I've been playing a while, but and still very bad at knowing when to make the switch for most builds. Years in and I still struggle with clearing end content. |
