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[2.2] Guardian Support Immortal Tank (Hardcore Build)



Vuln + Crit Colosseum
https://www.twitch.tv/blueiceeve/v/56652387

Double Colosseum Daresso, No regen + Curse Immune
https://www.twitch.tv/blueiceeve/v/56657009

MinusMax + Added Cold + Vuln + Double Onslaught Shipyard
https://www.twitch.tv/blueiceeve/v/56659919

Intro
My name is Blue and I have been playing POE since the 1 Month Flashback League in Autumn 2015, Although I may not have the experience that a lot of other people have, I have played POE at the highest level in a Hardcore League environment, having played with top tier players such as Havoc, Nugi, Zizaran and many others. Currently at the time of this post my HC Perandus character is lvl 98 and rank 18 on the ladder, having been rank 5 - two weeks into the league.

Build Goal
To create a support build that eliminates personal error from endgame maps in Hardcore POE, while simultaneously allowing you to run any combination of damage mods reliably.

Before we can understand why my build works we have to understand how the current builds, you will be playing with, work. From my observation of the current meta, top tier builds in POE are constructed roughly as follows - Get enough defence to survive 1-2 damage mods at most, then get damage.
This leaves a huge hole in most peoples’ defences allowing us to take advantage of this and profit from it.

The final point that I want to bring up is that this build is very flexible, for example you can drop determination for a damage aura, or swap the purities for 3 blasphemy auras. However in this guide I will be using stats from my full defence setup, and primarily be focusing on that (which is probably what is on my profile currently).

Why focus on auras rather than curses?
Spoiler
Curses are good but there are 3 main reasons why I think investing more heavily into auras is better and more reliable.

Offensive curses are not very spectacular at endgame
Especially with the existence of elemental equilibrium and penetration support gems for single damage type builds, and now the Inquisitor for multiple damage type builds. Assassin’s Mark is the only one that scales decently into late game, and as I said we are focusing more on defence as most builds already have enough damage.

Curse Immune Maps
With the existence of the very common curse immune map mod, relying too heavily on curses can be expensive as you will have to roll over more maps.

Reaction Time
Especially this league as we are often putting onslaught on our maps, monsters can charge in from off-screen very quickly and hit your party members, before you even have time to curse them, relying more on auras eliminates this possibility as your team is already receiving a huge amount of defence from you.


What are our defences?
Spoiler
59% Flat Physical Damage Reduction – AA, 3xEndurance, Basalt Flask, Guardian Passive.
12k Armour (with ironskin up)
6k Evasion
88% all elemental resists
12k+ energy shield
600 energy shield regen (1000 with enduring cry buff)

Flasks are very consistent as we have around 40% reduced flasks charges used giving our resist flasks 3 uses and the basalt 2 uses.


What are we giving to the party?
Spoiler
Defence:
20% Flat Physical Damage Reduction – 3xEndurance, Guardian Passive
2200 Flat Armour – Guardian Passive
6k Evasion – Grace
6% Max Elemental Resists – Purity Auras
300 Flat Energy Shield – Guardian Passive

Offence:
42% Attack Speed
42% Cast Speed
30% Movement Speed


What curses?
Spoiler
Even though I have put an emphasis on Auras, we still pick up every curse node on the tree as they are very close to the Aura nodes we take, so our curses are very strong.
Usually I use Enfeeble, Temporal Chains, and Warlords Mark.
However depending on who you are playing with you can use any combination of 3 curses, as it is very easy to recolour your Shav’s.


Why Ball Lightning?
Spoiler
Ball Lightning is the best spell for general purpose mapping. It covers a large area, you only have to cast it once to curse an entire pack, and you can curse things offscreen. Spells like Bladefall and Shock Nova require positioning or multiple casts which can be distracting or can slow you down, both of which are counterproductive in a hardcore environment.


Mapping Strategy
Spoiler
We can do every single map mod. The worst ones are No regen and Blood Magic
No regen – replace Amethyst Flask with Mana Flask
Blood Magic – Take off All auras before entering the map, Replace Purity of Lightning with Purity of Elements. Replace Amethyst flask with Life Flask. Enter the Map and Cast all your auras except Haste and the Specific Purities. Do not forget to Turn on Purity of Elements or you Might be undercapped on some of your resists (I learned this the hard way, almost losing my character)

Even though we can do Blood Magic we don’t want to as a lot of builds cannot. This only for the purposes of Maps that have been corrupted and cannot be rerolled.

How to Roll:

I will be focusing on Red Maps specifically but you can apply this strategy to lower tier maps if you want. Assume you chisel all red maps.

T12-13

Roll until you get 1-2 Packsize, Roll over Blood Magic.
If you get 1 Packsize - Link the Map in chat and Vaal the Map. If it unIDs or Rerolls nicely, run the map. If your party does not like the map, save it for later when you’re playing with someone with a better build.
If you get 2+ Packsize – Run the Map, Adding 1-2 Fragments and Onslaught

T14-15

Roll until you get 2+ Packsize, Roll over Blood Magic. Run the Map adding 2-3 Fragments and Onslaught for T14, and Anarchy for T15.
Anarchy gives you lots of bases that sell for a lot of money.

With this strategy you maximise returns from the maps while minimising the currency you used to roll the maps.


Gear + Aura Setup
Spoiler







Stats you are looking for: Mana, >15% Reduced Flask charges used on belt, Int.
You will need around 45 Dex and 100 Str on your rare pieces, but you can easily make up for this with skill points until you do.

This is the Aura Setup:
https://poe.mikelat.com/#BiThyMCd/WF3Wcl3/rfrVD3/4y_EFyg

Level up the Clarity as you get more max mana as your gear improves and you get more levels


Passive Tree
Spoiler
Current Tree in Perandus HC at lvl 98:
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUDAQPuBAcI9A0fDXwOXBFQFy8YVhhqGYoabBqPGyUc3B0UHU8dmR2qHb4i9CepKPoqUy0fL28y0TOHNbk3RzwoQYdFR0V-RZ1GcUlRSbFLrkyzTlJObVNSVcZV1lfJWAdb9FxrXypfsGBDZOdmnmh0akNq-musbAttGW49b55wu3gvfOV_xoCkgseDCYPbhEiExYx2jxqPRo_6kiuTJ5rgm6GbtZwynL6drqEvpRilxKcIpyuycLQMtzG4k76AvorAVMBmwcXDOsNtxLTKSsrT0B_Xz9kT2VvaYuGI6QLquuvk6-7sGO-I7-vw1fba98H31_k3-d356PrS-wn9AP5J

Hybrid Pre-Shav's Tree:
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUAAPndN0drrEVHMtHAZuvuBLOa4KcIHNyiAEWdj0adrriTjxrwH1NSm6EabCj6aPIYajbp98GCx5itV8l4LySqHb756A18fOUWbzOHaHRBh-q6WAf60uNqA-7aYpy-tz60DBcvGFYNH_4KytNGcWTnPCjYvb6K4YiDCVXWkyehLx2qb55gQ4Ckf8bviP5Jykrxs249flnBxfk3X7BLV76A7BjXz5u1wOOP-nC7Tm1JscM6hMXw1dkTpcQZipUuSVEvb5wy-wkHHvbaGo8=

How to level?
Use Whispering Ice, take all the int connection nodes for damage

Bandits?
Start with Oak, Skillpoint, Skillpoint as Hybrid.
Later change to Skilpoint, Skillpoint, Skillpoint as Lowlife.

Jewels – Energy From Within in the 3 spots (Near Melding, Quick Recovery, and Cruel Preparation)
Conqueror's Efficiency in one of your sockets
Rares: Maximum ES, Maximum Mana, Projectile Speed (for ball lightning)
Last edited by blue__ice on Mar 28, 2016, 9:14:02 AM
Last bumped on Nov 23, 2016, 7:23:00 AM
FAQ

(I will be filling this part out over time)

Why not Mortal Conviction for more Auras?
You do gain an extra aura from mortal conviction and more armour however you lose a lot of ES since you have to path so far, and you lose even more from not reserving any mana, around 4000 in total I think, as well as losing the ability to regen ES using ZO. The best alternative I have seen using MC is a build that uses the unique sulphur flask that grants you ZO for a short period of time, allowing you to still cast using life/life regen but regen ES when you really need it. However this does mean you would have to leave enough life unreserved so that you could cast a few times during the Sulphur flask duration which goes against the whole point of using Mortal Conviction for the extra Aura.

Why no stun immunity?
With as much mitigation as I have, you only ever get stunned when hit by bosses or large monsters. With over 12k ES, if you do get chain-stunned you have plenty of time to log out if you need to.
I do not recommend it, but if you really want stun immunity the best option is using a Chayula. However you lose out on a lot of ES since Chayula does not give you very many stat points, which is exactly what you are looking for on a normal neck.

Why not alphas howl?
Spoiler
What does alphas howl give you?

Freeze immune
You are already immune to freeze as one of your flasks has anti-freeze (and they have effectively 100% uptime).

Reduced aura reservation
The aura reservation reduction would give you access to another aura which is nice but the only defensive aura left is Vitality which is pretty lacklustre.

+2 Aura levels
The +2 levels can only really be taken advantage of by your purities, but you need lvl 21 purities (then your purities will be lvl 23 in the howl, giving you +5% auras) which is almost impossible to get at the start of the league and not necessary. If I were to spend more money on the build - get better rares, lvl 21 auras, etc... then Alphas howl would probably have a place in it. However as it stands, the build is designed to be a cheap first build for a league that can do all endgame mapping content and make a lot of currency.

Evasion vs ES
You lose about 3k ES from dropping the ES helm. Considering you do not have much %EVA on the tree you will only gain about 1500 evasion which is not worth dropping the ES for.
Last edited by blue__ice on Mar 28, 2016, 9:10:12 AM
"
blue__ice wrote:

Why not Mortal Conviction for more Auras?

...as well as losing the ability to regen ES using ZO.


wat, why whould that be?
Last edited by iHaku on Mar 25, 2016, 10:19:08 PM
"
iHaku wrote:
"
blue__ice wrote:

Why not Mortal Conviction for more Auras?

...as well as losing the ability to regen ES using ZO.


wat, why whould that be?


You are forced to cast with life, so if you take ZO you can't regen life
Do you have any trouble with stuns? You don't have any stun immunity like Lioneye's paws or chayula or Unwavering.
IGN = Dearest (Warbands)
hi there, pretty nice guide you wrote, can you explain the mechanic of lori's lantern's "enemies are unlucky when damaging you?"?
"
BoBoTheCasual wrote:
hi there, pretty nice guide you wrote, can you explain the mechanic of lori's lantern's "enemies are unlucky when damaging you?"?


Damage is rolled twice, the lowest is picked.
"%^#*##*%$#&^&(&(%$^*&" - Flameblast 1.0.4
i really like that this is an endgame build thats really cheap
basicly the only investment is the 5l shavs

if the optimisation of this game wouldnt be so horrible for laptops and older specs i would actual try this
https://poe-ssf.herokuapp.com/. Join the fun.
SSF HC Legacy Witch Lvl 53
You have Generosity linked to 2 Purity and Determination, is that intentional? Wouldn't that hurt your own tankiness a good bit?
I run a stibnite flask with this build and it does good work. Also gives you something to do in Curse immune maps.

You make your group ridiculously tanky. But you cannot solo at all, and leveling is a real bitch. It's about a 7-10ex build from scratch on PSC. I leveled with Tabula Rasa and Rare/Uniq 2 Handers using EQ. You get SUPER squishy after 55ish but with flasks you can manage it. hardcore I would probably just count on using 10 regrets + the freebies.

edit: Just noticed the OP is the guy I stole the build off. Works great :D
Last edited by znowstorm on Mar 26, 2016, 8:02:16 AM

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