[2.2] Culler-support. Now also budget! - Full MF | 12.6kES | 7 Auras + Guardian

Thanks!

Upon re-reading the guide in its entirety, I have a new question: At what level should I aim to have blood magic?

So far while leveling I've put about 6 points in out of the way spell damage/fire damage so I can level solo with fire totem + firestorm. I have most of the "backbone" of the build completed, except for the lower left side of the tree on the way down to BM. I've started allocating mana reserve modes now because I'm at level 51 and leveling solo is becoming quite painful. I'm going to need to start grouping soon and I'd like to have the character somewhat viable for groups by 60-65. But I don't see blood magic being viable by then either.

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SpidaFly wrote:

Thanks!

Upon re-reading the guide in its entirety, I have a new question: At what level should I aim to have blood magic?

So far while leveling I've put about 6 points in out of the way spell damage/fire damage so I can level solo with fire totem + firestorm. I have most of the "backbone" of the build completed, except for the lower left side of the tree on the way down to BM. I've started allocating mana reserve modes now because I'm at level 51 and leveling solo is becoming quite painful. I'm going to need to start grouping soon and I'd like to have the character somewhat viable for groups by 60-65. But I don't see blood magic being viable by then either.

More or less you guessed it right. Before going to the south you have to pick all other aura nodes in the tree.

Then, auras vs defence is a very similar question that MF vs defence. Once you feel you have a decent es pool, go for mortal conviction.

Usually you would get the keystone around lvl 75-90, but since dying in standard isn't a big deal, you might want to go for it earlier (and play more conservatively, since you miss shavs). Up to you, just find your comfort zone.

PS: I edited the Mana section.

Update: level 73 now, got Blood Magic as well as Charisma. The build is playing quite fluidly with 6 auras up. I dropped Vitality for now (well I'm leveling it up just not casting it) until I can get a couple level 2 Enlightens.

Sitting at 66/313 pre-distillate, which doesn't seem to bad for starters (?) 4784 ES too, without all the ES nodes I'm going to get and only level 17 Discipline.

I'm wearing a Vertex right now, with Haste/Grace/Discipline in it. It makes up a bit for the lack of shavs, and since I'm wearing Wandertrapp, I won't miss the IIR too much. Of course the long term goal is a 40%+ helm and a 5L shavs, but this seems to work nicely until I can afford it.

Awesome guide, huge props!!

PS. For anyone asking about leveling: follow ZiggyD's caster leveling guide and then experiment off of that as you get higher. I got to low 60s solo with just flame totem and firestorm and 6 or 7 DPS nodes. At a certain point it does become excessively brutal to level like this and you'll want to dump those DPS nodes, pick up Blood Magic, and start doing pub groups in Dried Lake or doing low tier maps with friends.

I have near enough currency to get my 2nd overpowered MF item, but nothing in poetrade satisfies my quality/cost expectations.

If someone is willing to make a discount on 2nd hand items or fees, whisper me and we talk it out. If someone is willing to sell something non-mirror worthy, but with T1 IIQ and 2x T1 IIR, we can also talk it.

Hi Culler support here i love it. basically i really haven't seen this issue brought up except maybe when the guy asked about using a lower lvl flame totem, but even in your guide you spoke on only having two casts of flame totem per Divination Distillate. With you only using one Divination Distillate how are you keeping the up time on it as you need to spam flame totem for the iq/ir up time in a slow group? Do you find your self at times not being able to cast flame totem at all? I'm currently at 270 (now 334)reserved life flame totem cost 82 so i have around 3 cast i wish there was a video of you casting at a high game knowledge lvl so we can get a feel on how you cull optimally. do we simply cast 2 totems on packs have em sit then proc flask and spam totem.

(edit now that i have 334 reserved life i find that now i have room to throw more totems out but keep the up time on flasks can be hard with lvl 17 flame totem)

i guess what im asking is id like to get to know your mind set as you set out to cull, and the steps you take based on your stats.

question on aura priority.
Discipline
vitality
grace
haste always a must but if the party isnt running dmg auras as someone is always runninf hatred
do i run wrath and anger or just have the 3 puritys up?

Good questions Zo0, the flask section in the guide was a bit lacking.

About gameplay
There are two things which I consider important:

1. Clearspeed > culls.
2. Quality of life > culls

Which basically means you shouldn't get obsessed trying to cull every single monster with distillate up.
Of course, not everyone shares my vision, but I would say this is more true the more you progress. When you have little to no gear you play very focused, trying to get the max out of it. But when you are pretty well geared and next gear upgrade takes dozens of hours, you tend to a more "disconnected" playstyle.

When I play I perma-spam a 70% movement speed quicksilver and usually walk up a bit ahead of my party, so I find a good place to cast totems in advance (at the side of packs, maximizing AoE and avoiding corners/terrain). I pretty much treat distillate as a health potion to cast totems, except on bosses, exiles and the occasional high hp rare. I do that because of my lazyness, but also because the clearspeed of the people I play forces me to.

In a not-so-op party, you should do more or less the same. Except you probably will "down the cut" (I'm not a native speaker, so I don't know if that's correct). Basically you probably will want to keep your hp down on yellows and blues too. And you won't need to run ahead of your party because you'll have plenty of time to decide where to place totems.

Emptying lifefor tryhards
I don't recommend it to any sane person, but you can combine distillate with http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Blood_of_the_Karui for higher accuracy on distillate buff. Cast 2 totems, wait for enemy to be low hp, use distillate and use karui.
You trade higher distillate uptime for a flask slot (maybe even 2, because you might run into hp problems if you abuse this method)

Emptying mana for lazy guys
Ideally (if you have room for utility spells) you cast one spamable spell with fast cast speed and high mana cost. If you don't have gem room for that, you have to keep recasting totems, which is not as good because it screws totem positioning a bit, and sometimes interrupt the spells of the replaced totem.

About having enough hp to cast
Right now I have 337 hp unreserved (without conqueror's efficiency), and lvl 20 FT cost 91 mana, so I have a minimum of 3 casts per flask usage. We have 32% increased flask duration so each flask last 6.6s (20 from belt, 12 from tree). Let's suppose you don't have enlightens, and can only hold 2 usages per flask.

I said a minimum of 3 casts because on those 6.6s totems are free (unless your party is really fast and you can't afford to standstill, but if that's the case you never have flask shortage problems). Because totems lasts 8s, this leaves your party with 14.6s to gain 20 flask charges. To me, that's more than enough, but if party is too slow you can always carry a 2nd distillate or, if you are poor, a life flask.

About auras
The eternal answer, it's up to your playstile/goals and party.

I NEVER swap my gems because:
1- It's impossible to afford best IIQ gear with high energy shield and high res, so I choose the ES and cap res with purities.
2- I would be too lazy and forgetful to keep changing gems here and there.
3- The groups I play with have no need of extra dps
4- I'm focused on leveling, so I highly value max res over extra dmg (lvl 99 46% exp atm)


EDIT: Keeping your flame totem at a lower level. <--Not recommended, because it's hard not to get full hp, losing the whole distillate effect (which in turn can increase your hp problems). Use 2 health flask instead.

Actually, I remembered two situations where I had to cull map bosses flaskless. One is in waterways map (random immunity phases) and the other is in wasteland (when my friends invite some guildies/other friends, boss is about to get in cull range but then starts healing xD).

Partly because of my meager 6.3k ES, I've been having some survivability issues.

I'm not running with empowers, because I'm still using Vertex to cover for the lack of Shav's ES. This has left me with a socket free for Vaal Discipline. I love it - it has radically improved my survival.

Do you not find that you have any survivability problems at all with your 12k ES?

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SpidaFly wrote:

Partly because of my meager 6.3k ES, I've been having some survivability issues.

I'm not running with empowers, because I'm still using Vertex to cover for the lack of Shav's ES. This has left me with a socket free for Vaal Discipline. I love it - it has radically improved my survival.

Do you not find that you have any survivability problems at all with your 12k ES?

You shouldn't have survivability issues playing this build with 6.3k ES, considering all the defensive buffs and the fact that you can place totems and stay in the back. Probably is a thing of playstyle, are you going melee mode? :D

With 12k+ es you are almost unkillable, except for bearers. Like 95% of my deaths were against bloodshit, 3% because I was chatting, and 2% to a random puncture in a vul+crit map.

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dulahan200 wrote:

Emptying mana for lazy guys
Ideally (if you have room for utility spells) you cast one spamable spell with fast cast speed and high mana cost. If you don't have gem room for that, you have to keep recasting totems, which is not as good because it screws totem positioning a bit, and sometimes interrupt the spells of the replaced totem.About having enough hp to cast
Right now I have 337 hp unreserved (without conqueror's efficiency), and lvl 20 FT cost 91 mana, so I have a minimum of 3 casts per flask usage. We have 32% increased flask duration so each flask last 6.6s (20 from belt, 12 from tree). Let's suppose you don't have enlightens, and can only hold 2 usages per flask.I said a minimum of 3 casts because on those 6.6s totems are free (unless your party is really fast and you can't afford to standstill, but if that's the case you never have flask shortage problems). Because totems lasts 8s, this leaves your party with 14.6s to gain 20 flask charges. To me, that's more than enough, but if party is too slow you can always carry a 2nd distillate or, if you are poor, a life flask.


ZO0
So as far as having a spamable spell flame dash is the only one i can fit in and it doesnt really fit the role as being able to spam to keep the up time on distillate so i have adopted out of instinct spaming totems to have the up time on distillate. but as you mentioned this is not as good because it screws totem positioning a bit, and sometimes interrupt the spells of the replaced totem. I am using 3 lvl 3 enlightens so my reserved life is healthy (306) so Im guessing ill just
wait for the execute and sit around half hp for some rares and exiles? or shall i continue spaming totems for that distillate duration?

On the portion about the auras i couldnt agreed more as the 33%dmg buff from animated guardian is more than enough.

also can you share the mods on your flasks quicksilvers and jade because. Im using 2 distillates and 2 quicksilvers one staunching and one heat to remove frozen. I would like to fit my 70% Quicksilver in my set up but im stuck in a pickle, as well was wondering your set up even looked at your lootscreen to try to find the answers

You messed up the quote :P

With my current setup, I have to spam totems when I need to deplete my pool too. It's not ideal, but it isn't terrible.

For random trash I usually walk-totem-walk-totem (as if I were playing an adc in Lol, but walking forwards instead of backwards). For map bosses I do as you said, as it's more precise and less risky: cast all totems when they have 20-50% hp, then drink flask when they have 20-30%. You can do that on rares too.

About flask, you can check them on my profile, it's open :)
But yep, remove bleeding and freezing are a must for all builds, the rest doesn't really matter, pick whatever you prefer or have. You probably don't need the 70% quicksilver if party isn't that fast, I do because have to keep up with whirling blades and I don't use flame dash.