[3.4] Occultist Herald of Agony Brainstorming

Gathering thoughts and ideas

We want to focus on the Scorpi Bro.
Dont think we need any minion nodes other than accurancy.
Focusing on keeping stacks of poison high.
Profane Bloom for clearspeed.
For HoAg probably choosing Coming Calamity.
Low Life would best for additional auras. Maybe CI

Skilltree should be focusing on ES, ES regen generell tankyness.
For lvling going with Viper strike.

ES has been heavily nerfed go for life instead

U should use bow version with barrage or may be TS cus it hits lot of targets and get many stacks of Virulence in one use. U can use something like Darkscorn for more survivability (25% of physical incoming goes to chaos) + soul strike quiver - good equivalent of Apep's for occultist.

I`m gonna use something like this with reworked CA for my CI occultist. Darkscorn (or may be some +2-3 bow for pure DoT CA, or ED) + Soul Strike is best choise to building aroud CI occultis imho, cus soul strike is to strong.

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JonickPOE wrote:

U should use bow version with barrage or may be TS cus it hits lot of targets and get many stacks of Virulence in one use. U can use something like Darkscorn for more survivability (25% of physical incoming goes to chaos) + soul strike quiver - good equivalent of Apep's for occultist.

I`m gonna use something like this with reworked CA for my CI occultist. Darkscorn (or may be some +2-3 bow for pure DoT CA, or ED) + Soul Strike is best choise to building aroud CI occultis imho, cus soul strike is to strong.

Planning to do something similar myself. Going with the new minion nodes + poison Tornado shot with CoH and Enfeeble/Temp Chains to buff my Scorp Bro. Thinking I'll go Lioneye's Glare + Soul Strike to avoid accuracy issues.

Here my current PoB: https://pastebin.com/ZubY2HhW

Here are the primary links and gems I'll be running:

6L Attack: Tornado Shot > Curse on Hit > Temporal Chains > Enfeeble/Despair > Added Chaos Damage > Deadly Ailments

Will swap between Enfeeble/Despair as defense is needed.

6L Herald of Agony: HoAg > Minion Damage > Added Chaos > Faster Attacks > Vicious Projectile > Pierce.

Will also be using Discipline as I am planning to go CI. Planning to use Lioneye's Glare + Soul Strike + Dendrobate.

Dendrobate (40%) + HoAg (20%) + Tree (20%) puts us at 80% chance to poison. I'll be aiming for a Coralito's Signature (25%) to cap our chance to poison (105%).

Will be hitting 300 Dex for Dendrobate bonus.

Any suggestions/optimizations appreciated. I used pretty generic gear in PoB, so hopefully I'll be 7k+ ES.

EDIT: Possibly leveling with something like https://pastebin.com/96PZJbbY with generic life/minion nodes, allowing me to choose between spells/attacks depending on drops.

I've made a post about what kind of build it looks like, u can join to our discussion in this topic - page 6.

I had something like this in my mind https://pastebin.com/dqvyBqTk
I dont want to deal dmg myself, just buffing scorpi bro and pumping def and some minion nodes over the tree.


When going CI something like this maybe https://pastebin.com/g8fpV9gW

Ya all had in mind the insane reserved mana with a 6 link HoAg? Dont think so ...
You wont be able to run another Aura without calamity

you can definitly spend a lot into minion dmg/attack speed and take the node that gives you attack speed then go either for darkscorn for extra tankiness or quill rain to keep up stacks of virulence/withering touch eisier, also tornado shot and barrage are always good choice but maybe toxic rain might be enough to generate these while giving some extra dmg (if you go for an offensive setup) or just utility (up to 60% slow, withering touch, curse on hit because you already reserve a lot if you want 6L your agony scorpion, mirror archer for extra stacks generation). for the quiver soulstrike is the way to go for tankyness, for the armor atziri's disfavor/ IH or calamity if you can afford having only 200 es on body armor (allows you to save enough mana for a blasphemy setup eventually on heretic veil). everything else should be classic es recharge ring and good rare, except for the gloves the new accuracy on minions could be a huge buff to dmg depending on the scorpio stats.

this build could be solid but the question is will you manage to get tanky enough while investing in both your herald/minion/attack speed/poison chance... to make occultist worth it (probably with kinda high investment)

necro can have a higher dmg and more as with less investment also life is easier to build early on, and the ability to have phys res threw zombies or proximity shield specters gives necro a very safe gameplay i think it might be a solid early pick to swap later on.

The benefits from necro aren't as huge.

The scorpi gets 400% increased dmg on full stacks.
compared to necro and the other minion nodes thats HUGE.

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EmptyPalms wrote:

Here my current PoB: https://pastebin.com/ZubY2HhW

Here are the primary links and gems I'll be running:

6L Attack: Tornado Shot > Curse on Hit > Temporal Chains > Enfeeble/Despair > Added Chaos Damage > Deadly Ailments

Will swap between Enfeeble/Despair as defense is needed.

6L Herald of Agony: HoAg > Minion Damage > Added Chaos > Faster Attacks > Vicious Projectile > Pierce.

Will also be using Discipline as I am planning to go CI. Planning to use Lioneye's Glare + Soul Strike + Dendrobate.

Dendrobate (40%) + HoAg (20%) + Tree (20%) puts us at 80% chance to poison. I'll be aiming for a Coralito's Signature (25%) to cap our chance to poison (105%).

Will be hitting 300 Dex for Dendrobate bonus.

Any suggestions/optimizations appreciated. I used pretty generic gear in PoB, so hopefully I'll be 7k+ ES.

EDIT: Possibly leveling with something like https://pastebin.com/96PZJbbY with generic life/minion nodes, allowing me to choose between spells/attacks depending on drops.

I haven't taken a look at your PoB yet but a few thoughts:
- Tornado Shot is a nice idea but I think that you'll have to use LMP/GMP. My biggest fear is that we won't be able to maintain enough Virulence stacks to have a significant HoAg DPS.
You'd be sacrificing DPS but I'm not sure that it will be relevant at the end since you're already sacrificing 3 links for the CoH setup in your Tornado Shot, even with the minion damage applied to us.
If you go that way you don't have to reach 300 Dex for the Dendrobate bonus. You can still use Dendrobate as a 7link: Tornado Shot/GMP/Poison/Curse on Hit/2 Curses and you now have 100% chance to poison without having to spend any points in the tree or use a flask.
- Not using Calamity means that your 6L Herald of Agony will most likely reserve more than 100% of your Mana. You may have to settle for a 5L or invest in Mana reservation reduction.
- I don't think that Added Chaos or Pierce are the best choices in your Herald of Agony since:
¤ Virulence stacks already provide a huge amount of base damage
¤ Profane Bloom coupled with the scorpion's AoE will most likely deal well enough with packs.
- Lioneyes's Glare is a good idea to solve the accuracy issue, and it could maybe match the speed of Quill Rain by investing in:
¤ The passive that grants Minion Attack Speed to you
¤ Minion attack speed nodes in the tree
¤ Minion attack speed jewels