[3.8] A CI/LL Tri-Curse Herald of Agony Occultist [Deathless Uber Elder, League Starter]

"
yongsoo wrote:
wow trying to hit level 20 vicious is like hitting the lottery..

is a level 18 vicious projectiles even worth stopping at?

According to PoB difference in dps between lvl 20 and 18 is minor, but alts is very cheap so I'd suggest you to try more.
Hello everyone and I wish you all a very happy new year, full of Exalts and DPS ! :-)

I am happy that the thread has been very active during the Christmas holidays and would like to thank you all for your fruitful discussion.

Concerning me, I have finally been able to play quite a bit and as agreed earlier, I give you the full review of my build : SSF CI Occultist Whispering Ice Herald of Agony.

(I have put everything under spoiler because it will be very long and you may not want to read it !)

Good luck to everyone with the mighty scorpion !


Spoiler


Leveling :

From level 1 to Act 3 Library :

I have leveled my Occultist from the first levels to the Act 3 Library by using Summon Raging Spirit + Zombies. It was neither good or bad : the DPS on single target (bosses) was rather good with SRS but the clear speed was pretty bad as the Spirits disappear too quickly and the Zombies are slow to react.
The Syndicate Encounters were also quite an issue...

Looking backwards, I would recommend to have an hybrid setup : a fast hitting spell like Freezing Pulse for clear and Summon Raging Spirit for bosses.

By the way, I have leveled using the "pure ES" strategy (not life/ES) and it was really good.


From Act 3 Library to Act 6 Western Forest :

When I finally got access to nearly all gems with Siosa in the Library (remember that I play SSF), I have been able to switch to the Herald of Agony !

The game then became really enjoyable. I crafted a 4L +1 minion helmet with the vendor recipe (Magic (Blue) helmet + Orb of Alteration + Life Flask with the suffix "of Animation") for the Crawler.
My early setup was Herald of Agony - Minion damage - Minion speed (not enough minion nodes in the tree taken so far) - Pierce (no curse on hit)

For poisoning, I went with Ball Lightning - LMP (GMP after Act 4) - Lesser Poison, and it was really good as well. A bit low on bosses, but the Crawler still managed to 4-shot Malachai in the last phase, giving a huge feeling of power !

I still kept the Zombies to provide some meatshields for the Syndicate/Bosses and it was quite alright when I went Summon Zombie - Minion Life - Totem and Minion Elemental Resistances.

Then again, leveling with pure ES was very good and no problem at all to survive.


From Act 6 Western Forest to end of Act 10 :

Upon reaching the Western Forest in Act 6, I farmed the Divination Card "The Incantation" for getting the Whispering Ice staff. It did not take too long to get the 4 required cards (between one and 2 hours). I was over level 50, which is important so that the Whispering Ice staff can go to 6 sockets.

At first, I settled for 4 sockets and the coloring (2 blue 2 green) was already a big challenge. It costed me all my chromatics and even some jewellers to get additionnal chromatics at the vendor. In the end, I succeeded and the poisoning became (Icestorm) - Spell Cascade - Lesser Poison - Curse on hit - Projectile Weakness, while Crawler link became Herald of Agony - Minion damage - Added Fire damage - Physical to Lightning (Elemental Equilibrium was taken in the passive tree).

The rest of the leveling/story process went very very well, the Crawler was obliterating everything. I was able to do the Merciless Lab just before act 10 Kitava and it was very easy.
Kitava himself went down very quickly, just one random death to a ground blast I didn't see.
Just one thing of note : the Sewers in the beginning of Act 8 were quite challenging, as I was not yet CI, and life was very small (1k5 HP). The poison clouds from the zombies were very deadly. But it was the only problematic zone.

For Ascendancies, I took the ES nodes first (Wicked Ward then Vile Bastion) and finally Profane Bloom.



End game

From early maps :

With the help of Hillock in Transportation, I have been able to put 28% quality on the Whispering Ice staff, which allowed me to 6 socket it very easily (less than 50 jewellers).

However, this luck ended here, as I was not able to achieve 3 blue & 3 green sockets in more than 200 chromatics (average of 439 chromatics in Vorici calculator). I had to settle for 2 green, 2 blue & 2 red.

The link in Whispering Ice has then become (Icestorm) - Poison (with the help of an Abyss Jewel with + chaos damage to spells) - Spell Cascade - Curse on hit - Projectile Weakness - Increased Duration - Reduced Mana.
I have now Vorici in Research and I will try to put some white sockets in the staff to ease the coloring.

Defense-wise, I am currently sitting at a bit above 7k ES, which is very fine. DPS-wise, The Herald of Agony is still in my Helmet link (which has +2 minion gems) for now. I will try to first get a good ES chest and then 5L or 6L it. PoB indicates 240k DPS on Shaper @ 40 Virulence, so it is already very good !

I am still in T4/T5 maps (SSF slows obviously the full completion process) but everything goes very smoothly. Especially the Incursion/Delve parts where the Crawler just deletes every monster !
I am also looking to completing my last Trial of Ascendancy to finally get the Malediction node !



Final Words :

Pros :

- This is therefore the best build I have ever played in SSF for now (even though my Glacial Cascade Totem Ascendant last league was already very strong). The DPS is really high for SSF and the defense is excellent with CI and Occultist.

- The Whispering Ice staff held its promises by giving me the easiest 7L of the game. The coloring process is quite hard though. Icestorm with Spell Cascade has amazing reach and area of effect, allowing to reach 40 Virulence stacks on one pack. For bosses, the stack of Icestorms also allows me to reach 30+ Virulence stacks with ease.


Cons :

- Unfortunately, Icestorm with Spell Cascade and Increased duration comes with an additional hefty price : the game crashes a lot, especially when there is a lot of action spawning (Breach, Abyss, and even more the Syndicate Intervention encounters), where it has never crashed on my PC before. I have read countless topics on this, but this is really due to Icestorm and Spell Cascade unfortunately. I will soon change my gaming PC, so maybe for a higher spec one will be able to handle the heavy load that occurs.



Thank you for reading this. If you have additional comments/questions, please do not hesitate !

My SSF Character is public so you can see it, her name is Esmeraldakita (a nice name combining ES + Herald + my pseudo).

Bye for now !


Last edited by El_Pakito on Jan 7, 2019, 7:40:34 AM
Is it possible to fit in hatred without HOA reduced mana enchant? It's so expensive right now and maybe hatred reduced mana reservations is going to be just enough
Assuming I am not using Hatred, which HoA combination would be the best here (in a Vicious/+3 Bow):

HoA-MinionDamage-VileToxins-FullLife

1) Empower 3+Added Fire
2) Empower 3+Maim (no EE)
3) Added Fire+Maim

Would this change if I had a Empower 4?
Uber Elder down at first try (3 portals left) and at my first time on PoE.

Thanks to this guide and a special tanks to TeosMaoMao for all the in game support and valuable hints.



"
Buckets0 wrote:
Is it possible to fit in hatred without HOA reduced mana enchant? It's so expensive right now and maybe hatred reduced mana reservations is going to be just enough


I just went and gave it a try. Check my character. It works with enlighten linked to hatred.
Last edited by H3avyM3tal on Jan 7, 2019, 11:55:50 AM
The bow crafting process is so punishing when you dont have RNG...

Got lvl 20 vicious twice and annuled it off on the 2nd annul twice...

FML.
"
Darroc wrote:
Assuming I am not using Hatred, which HoA combination would be the best here (in a Vicious/+3 Bow):

HoA-MinionDamage-VileToxins-FullLife

1) Empower 3+Added Fire
2) Empower 3+Maim (no EE)
3) Added Fire+Maim

Would this change if I had a Empower 4?

Since you are too lazy to check in PoB, im also too lazy for that)
But i'm pretty sure its emp3+AF if you use EE.


"
yongsoo wrote:
Got lvl 20 vicious twice and annuled it off on the 2nd annul twice...

2nd annul? That kinda hints that you regal your 20VP bow and then annul it twice. Your experience kinda explains why this is a bad idea. Your 20VP has only 1/3 chance to survive that way. It doesnt have to be that bad. You can annul before you regal and give your 20VP a 50% chance instead of 1/3. You also save an exalt this way.
Last edited by Fortran775 on Jan 7, 2019, 3:05:29 PM


Can you help me do it the proper way? can I annul after I get it with 20VP before regaling?

The guide said to regal before annulment so was trying to do it that way...

I’m alt spamming to get 20VP. If it rolls 2 mods in regaling then annulling to get everything off except the 20VP. Is that wrong?
Last edited by yongsoo on Jan 7, 2019, 3:54:59 PM
"
yongsoo wrote:
can I annul after I get it with 20VP before regaling?

You can and you should. The guide gives you the result, but is not optimal currency-wise and time-wise. There is a better sequence:
1. Alt-annul to get a blue bow with 20VP and no suffixes. Thats it for alts and annuls. The rest is quick.
2. Craft "cant roll attack mods". Now your only rollable prefix is +1 gems.
3. Regal for a suffix. Go to 6 if you are lucky and get the prefix.
4. Beastcraft "add prefix and remove random suffix". This guarantees +1 gems and drops either your "cant roll attack mods" (unlucky) or the regaled suffix (lucky, go to 6). You can use 1-2 exalts instead of the beastcraft here, but this way you lose your 50% chance to skip step 5.
5. Remove all suffixes with "prefixes cannot be changed" craft and scour orb.
6. Now you have a bow with only 2 prefixes which are 20VP and +1gems. You can multicraft it.
Last edited by Fortran775 on Jan 7, 2019, 4:36:32 PM

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info