[2.3] (YES WE ARE BACK) SUPPORT BUILDS (LL BM AURABOT, CURSEBOT, TANK!)

WORK IN PROGRESS

Welcome to the thread for the greatest support builds Wraeclast has ever seen.

- Wanna provide all of the defensive auras, and 4% life regen, and still get left behind by a party full of CoC characters?

- Wanna provide heaps of curses that keep your party safe and inevitably get overridden by a Windripper character who knows that their Assassin's Mark is more important than Temp Chains, Ele Weakness, Enfeeble, Vulnerability and Warlord's Mark?

- Wanna be nigh-unkillable and get abused for not doing enough DPS as a support character?


Then you're ready to jump right into public parties!

Is there a place for support builds in Path of Exile?
In short - yes.

Path of Exile has recently been plagued with performance issues, making party play difficult. Even before this time, party play was never something that could be truly built around, leave for the top 1% of players who raced for the #1 on the ladderboard of a new league. That being said, I have always believed that a character for support - healing, auras, curses, defence - improves a mapping party immensely. Truth be told, the desire to formulate the best support build in Wraeclast is one of the only things keeping me coming back to Path of Exile.

They're difficult to level, difficult to play without a dedicated team, and difficult to gear - but hell, once you've got them running, you'll be the one party member they need.

Without further ado, I present two builds that I have put dozens of hours into - an aurabot, and a cursebot.


Levelling a Support Build in PoE
Levelling a support build is possibly one of the most tedious things one could attempt. It's simply a pain in the ass, but there are three real strategies you can employ to make a support build as your first character in a new league.

Option One - Rage and Respec
- Level as a FOTM build (I'll include a few links later) and then respec into one of the chosen skill trees.

- Probably the easiest method, however very expensive if your chosen build has a very different skill tree to your chosen support build.

- Fast, easy to level up quickly.

Option Two - Rely on the Party
- Level using one of the given skill trees, allowing your party to carry you.

- Cheap, in the sense that regrets are not necessary

- Unable to be levelled independently, MUST rely on the party for all boss kills, rushing, levelling.

- Often seen as the deadweight of the group.

- Would only recommend if playing with a dedicated party.

Option Three - A Bit of Both


TO TIDE YOU OVER:

LL BM Templar Aurabot - 10 Auras, Curses & Warcries (Passive, Passive, Passive)
CI Cursebot - 5-6 Curses, Huge ES (Passive, Passive, Passive)
Life-Based Block/Armour Tank (Life, Attack Speed, Endurance Charge)
IGN: CVRTIS

Low-Life? I prefer No-Life.
Last edited by CVRTIS on Jul 7, 2016, 1:07:18 AM
Last bumped on Jul 2, 2016, 1:45:58 AM
You might wanna check out what's happening in the beta , for example reduced mana got removed and blood rage is now a phys degen , and yea it's all changing in less then 2 weeks
"
XxoddFWGKTAXx wrote:
You might wanna check out what's happening in the beta , for example reduced mana got removed and blood rage is now a phys degen , and yea it's all changing in less then 2 weeks


Yeah, I've been keeping up to date with the most recent beta changes, and I feel like it's an interesting position for a support build. Although the reduced mana change hurts the build, the reservation costs of the auras have also been lowered, and although it isn't on par, I'm leveling some Enlightens currently so I can use them if need be. I'm interested about the new Frenzy charges, and if I'm generating the charges, other people don't need to worry about using blood rage, or even frenzy as a single target, just to keep those charges up. The tree changes to getting charges will mean that we spend a few more points than we should have, but jewel sockets should make things interesting too.
IGN: CVRTIS

Low-Life? I prefer No-Life.
Finished the budget section, next two are in the works!
IGN: CVRTIS

Low-Life? I prefer No-Life.
I used to have so much fun in 1.2 with my Scion Aurabot, running all 13 auras on a 5L Solaris Lorica at lvl 86 or 87. Yes, having all auras meant that i wasn't able to cast/do anything other than just running along the party, but so many auras were a welcome addition to many a party back then. I essentially had 2 life unreserved, nolifer indeed :P

1.3 changed everything, with the Mortal Conviction nerf, and with these changes to reservation i thought Aurabots/Auramancers were done for. And today I stumbled upon your guide, made me so happy.

At the moment I have a lvl 92 Witch, ready and waiting to test this build.

Looking forward to your more expensive gear topic addition to this guide :)
"
snquadrigis wrote:
I used to have so much fun in 1.2 with my Scion Aurabot, running all 13 auras on a 5L Solaris Lorica at lvl 86 or 87. Yes, having all auras meant that i wasn't able to cast/do anything other than just running along the party, but so many auras were a welcome addition to many a party back then. I essentially had 2 life unreserved, nolifer indeed :P

1.3 changed everything, with the Mortal Conviction nerf, and with these changes to reservation i thought Aurabots/Auramancers were done for. And today I stumbled upon your guide, made me so happy.

At the moment I have a lvl 92 Witch, ready and waiting to test this build.

Looking forward to your more expensive gear topic addition to this guide :)


Thanks a bunch! The more expensive gear is still coming, mainly because I'm trying to find an optimal setup of auras, and level them to their maximum potential. I briefly mention the Alpha's Howl and the Prism Guardian and the start of the guide - it does involve those two. It should be out in a few days! :)
IGN: CVRTIS

Low-Life? I prefer No-Life.
It's nice to see that I'm not the only one running a LL BM Auramancer. My suggestion for early gearing would be to run a Geofri's instead of a Alpha's. I mean sure Alpha's gives you a huge Aura buff but Geofri's allows you to get a basically free level 2 Enlighten (which adds an additional aura in my case)

I'm also not using spells (and therefore not using Pain Attunement) but I picked up RT because I'm running with Power Siphon and also stacking IIR/IIQ on top of it. (Wondertraps, Sadimas and so on)

For singletarget I have Frenzy to buff my party even more (cause I'm currently missing damage auras to get my resists sorted)

Also a little trick I found if you are going BM with Zealot`s Oath and you are attack based: Use life gain on hit. My skills cost basically no life as long as I hit my target and the added regen makes me somewhat tanky (with Vitality and Discipline)

Biggest problem I currently have is that solo play sucks (duh) and that there are no parties on EU (try culling with 400ms. Not funny...)

Other than that there is some slight improvement in your passive tree (like taking the Int next to Arcane Vision instead of the Int + Dex below) but that's about it.

PS: Melding with the "Energy from Within" Jewel is so stronk O.o
"
Resmia wrote:
It's nice to see that I'm not the only one running a LL BM Auramancer. My suggestion for early gearing would be to run a Geofri's instead of a Alpha's. I mean sure Alpha's gives you a huge Aura buff but Geofri's allows you to get a basically free level 2 Enlighten (which adds an additional aura in my case)

I'm also not using spells (and therefore not using Pain Attunement) but I picked up RT because I'm running with Power Siphon and also stacking IIR/IIQ on top of it. (Wondertraps, Sadimas and so on)

For singletarget I have Frenzy to buff my party even more (cause I'm currently missing damage auras to get my resists sorted)

Also a little trick I found if you are going BM with Zealot`s Oath and you are attack based: Use life gain on hit. My skills cost basically no life as long as I hit my target and the added regen makes me somewhat tanky (with Vitality and Discipline)

Biggest problem I currently have is that solo play sucks (duh) and that there are no parties on EU (try culling with 400ms. Not funny...)

Other than that there is some slight improvement in your passive tree (like taking the Int next to Arcane Vision instead of the Int + Dex below) but that's about it.

PS: Melding with the "Energy from Within" Jewel is so stronk O.o


Thanks for checking the build out! The main reason we run the Alpha's isn't for the +2 aura level, but for the global 8% reduced mana. I will however add in the budget version of the build that using a Geofri's is a great idea, and that it can help you squeeze out an extra aura.

Here was my original idea for the build - go Conduit, using RT and Romira's to generate Power Charges, Enduring Cry to generate Endurance Charges, and Frenzy as my CoH attack to generate Frenzy Charges. Cursing with Frenzy is much more difficult, however - unless you use Pierce (taking up either 4 passive points, a curse slot or a gem slot), it is much more difficult to curse packs, and therefore dropped the theme of stacking charges and using Conduit. In all honesty, I am planning on making more support builds after this one - possibly a support wander that grabs Conduit and provides all charges to the party. On the topic of the passive point efficiency, I realised that almost as soon as I posted the tree - haven't gotten around to updating the link, though.

I toyed around with the idea of using Vitality to give me ES regeneration, however I found that waiting for the natural Out of Combat regen is more than fine - it takes some careful planning, and dodging of enemy skills/ground effects, but it is definitely very viable. In some situations, particularly around bosses, I use my Vaal Discipline which is in a +1 dagger - this takes me from 4.5k ES to around 11k ES for up to 6 seconds, possibly more with the Vaal Skill Duration jewel, and the Exceptional Performance and Potency of Will clusters.

In regard to the jewel with Melding, it's awesome - I haven't actually seen many people using it though, but I feel like the price is gonna rise quickly!
IGN: CVRTIS

Low-Life? I prefer No-Life.
Last edited by CVRTIS on Jul 19, 2015, 2:52:48 AM
This looks like an amazing build but I have two pretty simple questions.

1. Is this build viable for Tempest league? (I see that the items you have linked are verified on Softcore.)


2. Is it really important to make it to the 50% reduced reserved mana node behind Blood Magic ASAP? (Or in other words, what would be the optimal path for leveling?)

Cheers-

GDub
Last edited by NuLLxD on Jul 19, 2015, 6:57:16 AM
"
NuLLxD wrote:
This looks like an amazing build but I have three pretty simple questions.

1. Is this build viable for Tempest league? (I see that the items you have linked are verified on Softcore.)

2. If the answer to the above is yes, when is a good time to pick up the CI node?

3. Is it really important to make it to the 50% reduced reserved mana node behind Blood Magic ASAP? (Or in other words, what would be the optimal path for leveling?)

Cheers-

GDub


Hi GDub - thanks for checking out the build! In regard to your first question - I myself wouldn't play this on hardcore, simply because of the amount of things that could kill you. For example, with no way of regenerating ES during combat (apart from Vaal Discipline) simply becoming unfocused can take down an ES pool of 4500 very quickly. However, I would like to test this build out in hardcore, as it is where it would be the most helpful (providing defence to those who need it). I would only recommend this build on hardcore to those who are playing with a group of friends, due to the fact that you would need to stay as far away from combat as possible, whilst still cursing and giving auras to your party members, which can require some/a lot of communication.

We are a Low-life Blood Magic Build - meaning we reserve all of our life and spend life for our skills. If we were to pick up the CI node, our life would be one, meaning that we couldn't run the build.

This is a tricky one. I levelled to around 45 in Standard before 2.0 hit, not picking up any spell damage or life nodes, and using Flameblast/Arc/Fire Trap to level. It was tedious to say the least - a lack of DPS and survivability meant that clearing zones was slow, and killing bosses was almost impossible. Since you are a support character, I would assume that you would be levelling with a party - if so, follow the regular build, possibly picking up the spell damage starting nodes at Witch, and dual totems, and levelling with Flame Totem, or any other skill of your choice. These nodes can be respecced later. If not, I would suggest you level as Flame Totem or another spell, and try to path in the direction of Charisma (Shadow aura cluster) whilst picking up spell damage nodes, and the spell damage starting nodes, which can be respecced towards endgame when you are making the switch between Mana and Life. All in all, it is a difficult build to level, and I would only recommend this as a first character if you are with a party, who can carry you and keep you out of harm's way (to a degree).

I hope I sufficiently answered your questions, but if I didn't, or you have any more, feel free to ask!

- Curtis

EDIT: I quickly put together two builds - one for levelling with flame totem (I basically just changed LiftingNerdBro's tree a bit, credit goes to him) and one to respec into. This respec happens at Level 70, a few levels after you get the last skill point from Act 4 Merciless. This respec shouldn't be too expensive - using all the respec points you get, it shouldn't take too many regrets to complete it.

The Flame Totem Levelling Tree

Aurabot Tree, after respec at Level 70

After respeccing, your next points should go into completing the Scion ES wheel, then picking up Melding and the jewel socket if you are Energy from Within.
IGN: CVRTIS

Low-Life? I prefer No-Life.
Last edited by CVRTIS on Jul 19, 2015, 6:17:19 AM

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