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

No big changes!

Uber Elder, deathless (with Dream Fragments)


Shaper


Delve at depth 600, by Xyrm
Vaal Temple
T16 Elder Atoll

+ Good clear
+ Good single target (Elder, Shaper and Uber Elder down)
+ Great survivability, with over 10K ES, three curses, and very quick start of ES recharge
+ Cheap to get started - all required uniques are cheap, and ES gear is on average cheaper than their life counterpart
+ Can do all map mods
+ No need to worry about resummoning your minion, he's invulnerable to damage and summons/unsummons itself
+ Fun to play ("It's like a minion build but not boring" ~ Rockell)
+ Can take everything down up to Shaper without heavy investment (I'd say on a 1 or 2 ex budget), and can take down Uber Elder with some further investment (a faster start of ES recharge Watcher's Eye is almost mandatory)

+/- It's a minion build, which feels clunky to some people and relaxing to some others

- The Agony Crawler doesn't have a perfect AI, and will sometimes get stuck behind walls, altough this can be solved by having a Convocation gem (now that it's instant cast, it's confortable to use)
- Requires one six-link for HoA, and one for sustaining poison - you can play with a five-link for your poison setup, but you'll only have two curses
- Off-colours can be hard to get on chest (4 green 2 blue)

https://pastebin.com/iUrPXFNy

IMPORTANT: Read the notes in PoB (upper left corner, right next to "Import/Export")

This build relies on the Agony Crawler, from Herald of Agony, to deal damage. In order for it to appear and to deal damage, we need to apply poisons on enemies. There are multiple ways to do so; for instance, another build uses Molten Strike (link coming soon). I chose to use Rain of Arrows, for multiple reasons. First, it hits a lot of enemies, and allows us to be at 40 virulence stacks, the maximum, almost permanently. It can also hit bosses multiple times, which means it can be used to sustain Virulence against bosses (more on that in the "Boss mechanics" section). Finally, Rain of Arrows is used to apply three curses, and the fact that it can hit whole packs without the need of some piercing is crucial.

As for the Crawler itself, he follows you, which means you can poison and curse a pack and then walk to it, it'll be dead by the time you reach it. If you're running a map with a tricky layout, you can use Convocation to avoid those awkward situations where the Crawler is stuck behind a wall.

There are two reasons why the clear is smooth. First, enemies are cursed, and the Profane Bloom ascendancy means enemies have a chance to explode (yes, even when killed by minions!). So basically, kill a few mobs, and the whole pack explodes. Then, one of the curses used is Projectile Weakness, which both increases the damage of the Crawler's ranged attacks and makes the Split Arrow-like attack pierce. Those two mechanics combined allow the Crawler to destroy entire packs with one attack, including eventual rare mobs, with a satisfying chaos explosion.

One last detail: we use Added Fire Damage support on the Crawler. As a result, about 32% of the Crawler's damage is fire, which is why we use Elemental Equilibrium to inflict a 50% fire res reduction on enemies. In order to do that, we use a ring, an amulet, or a Searching Eye jewel that adds cold or lightning damage to attacks, amounting to a 13% more damage multiplier.

As mentioned before, the build is played CI, which means a huge EHP pool to avoid usual one shots. There are different ways to sustain ES, the one we are using is recharge: after some time without taking damage, ES will start recharging.

With the Occultist ascendancy, ES recharge can't be interrupted for 4 seconds after starting, and we are stacking ES recharge rate (skill tree, Bated Breath, small nodes in the Occultist ascendancy) and faster start of ES recharge (notable Essence Surge in the skill tree, Soul Strike quiver, Watcher's Eye or rare jewels). I am currently at 154% faster start of ES recharge.

Furthermore, Rain of Arrows is a quick and reliable to curse enemies with Enfeeble and Temporal chains from far away, and Projectile Weakness means you knock enemies back.

There are a few key uniques to this build, but they are all really cheap (unless you choose to go LL instead of CI, in which case you need Shavronne's Wrappings).

Quill Rain


Quill Rain is an important part of the build, providing us with the necessary attack speed to stack Virulence without needing to invest in attack speed at all. The high attack speed does not bring any mana issues, since Quill Rain grants a bit of mana gain on hit, and Rain of Arrows is essentially in a three-link (RoA, Poison, Curse on hit).



High budget: crafting a rare bow



Soul Strike


This is the first and main reason we use a bow to apply poisons. 80% faster start of ES recharge, what more is there to say? It provides incredible survivability, both while mapping and while bossing.




Bated Breath


This belt is basically the best in slot for all ES recharge builds. It gives a lot of ES, as well as a lot of ES recharge rate - it overcompensates the ES recharge rate reduction of Soul Strike.




Shaper's Touch

This item is not necessary, but it's a nice alternative to make body armour colouring easier. The idea is that those gloves are very cheap with the Temporal Chains on hit (around 10c, and around 20c tops with four linked sockets), that that corruption frees one socket in the body armour, and if you replace Temporal Chains with a blue gem, the colours become 3G3B, which is pretty easy to get (125 chromas at the crafting bench).

The reason why we choose Shaper's Touch and not rare gloves is that since we have some decent strength (since we need to use a lvl 20 damage on full life), these gloves grant decent ES, and good ES gloves with temporal chains on hit are more expensive.

Also, if you feel like those gloves grant enough accuracy and you feel like you sustain virulence easily on bosses, you can consider playing without Resolute Technique, although I would not recommend it.



Dream Fragments


Like Shaper's Touch, this item is not necessary, but the immunity to Chill and Freeze makes the Uber Elder fight so much more comfortable. I highly recommend it.




In all other slots, you can use unique items you like or rare items, but there should be nothing too expensive.

Jewels


There are two unique jewels that are interesting to us. First is a Watcher's Eye with the mod 30-40% faster start of Energy Shield recharge while affected by Discipline. This jewel can be a bit expensive (around 1ex), but is definitely worth the investment. However, you can very easily play without it and clear about all content.

The second is The Golden Rule, which reflects poisons you inflict back to you. Since we are CI, we are immune to chaos damage, so take no damage from poisons, and self-inflicted poisons add a stack of virulence, which doubles the virulence you gain. This makes stacking virulence against bosses very easy.

In other jewel sockets, rare Ghastly Eye jewels with flat ES and minion attack speed amount to about 2% more damage per jewel, which is a lot. Minion attack speed is much better than added physical damage for the Crawler.




Low Life (LL) version




About the body armour's colours




About Helmet enchants



Aul's uprising?

Yes! But it's very expensive, or at least, the ones we need are expensive. Look for any aura that would be useful for the Crawler, mostly Hatred and Haste. Other auras like Wrath and Anger could be useful, but would definitely not be worth the investment (unless you loot it, then why the hell not :) )

This is the gem setup for Herald of Agony:



Damage on full life does apply to the Crawler's attacks (confirmed by PoB). Since the Crawler is immune to damage, it will always be full life. Concerning Vile Toxins, the Crawler doesn't deal any poison damage, but we poison enemies, which makes the Crawler deal up to 45% more damage against enemies affected by 9 poisons. It provides a nice damage boost against target we poison a lot, i.e. in single target.

If the Crawler feels slow, or if you feel like he often gets stuck behind walls, you can also use Minion Speed support to make him more reactive.

Note on level 21 Herald of Agony
Virulence grants several buffs per stack to the Crawler, one of them being attack speed. It goes from 2% at lvl 1 up to 3% at lvl 20, and at lvl 21 it goes up to 4%. That means that the overall attack speed buff from virulence increases by 33%, which is huge. In PoB, a lvl 20 gem displays around 750K dps, and with the lvl 21, it's over 1M. Plus, quality is useful on HoA, but
not mandatory (it's minion movement speed), and there are cheap-ish lvl 21 gems (I bought mine for 1ex mid league), so it's a valuable late game upgrade.

For Rain of Arrows, this is the setup:



The Poison Support gem, along with the HoA buff, puts us at 80% chance to poison, which is more than enough. As for curses, the order of priority is Projectile Weakness > Enfeeble > Temporal Chains. Projectile Weakness removes the need for a Pierce support gem, freeing a socket, so it's the one mandatory curse!

A six-link Herald of Agony reserves a lot of mana, so we only have the mana for another aura. Of course, we use Discipline:



Note that, in order to use both Herald of Agony and Discipline comfortably, you'll need to either have a lvl 3 Enlighten on Discipline, or take the 4% reduced mana reserved node near Chaos Inoculation.

For the Golem, you can use either a Chaos or a Lightning golem. I started out with a Lightning golem, but I found I was always at maximum virulence anyway, so I opted for a Chaos golem to try and compensate the fact that we have no armour.



For mobility, Blink Arrow linked with faster attacks is perfect.



In the Cast when damage taken (level 1) setup, Immortal Call is used to allow the ES recharge to start more easily, and Phase Run for invisibility / mobility.



For the other gems, feel free to use whatever you like using (Fortify setup, golem in another, high-level, CwDT setup, ...)

The following is an optional setup for single target, if you struggle to sustain Virulence with Rain of Arrows (see next part for more details).

Alternatively, after cruel lab, if you already have good ES gear and want to improve your clear, you can take Profane Bloom before Vile Bastion, but unless you really feel tanky enough already, I would still follow the order in the picture.

Kill them all.

Easy choice: the only bandit worth helping on some builds is Alira, and since we do not profit from the crit multi, the two skill points are what we go for.

For each God, (almost) all stats are useful, but the crucial ones will be marked in red.


Major gods



My favourite major god. Damage over time is fairly common, and is problematic for all ES recharge builds. Reducing it is useful, but having more ES recovery after its end is often life-saving, especially versus Uber Elder where damage over time is everywhere.



A good alternative to the soul of Arakaali is that of the Brine King in case you're not using Dream Fragments; enhanced with the soul of Nassar, it halves the effect of chill on you, and chill is always a huge issue on CI or LL builds, especially versus Uber Elder.

For delving, the usual soul of Lunaris is also a great choice.


Minor gods



The soul of Abberath is almost mandatory. As mentioned before, damage over time is a huge problem since it prevents the start of ES recharge, and ignite is fairly common - there is even a map mod that makes all hits ignite you, and one where burning ground is everywhere. This God completely negates the effect of burning ground, and halves the duration of all ignites, and makes mapping and delving much more comfortable.

The Crawler is a big boi, he attacks whoever you hit automatically; all you need to worry about is surviving, and sustaining Virulence. I can't really help you for the "surviving" part, but I can give you a few tips for the "Virulence" part :)

For bosses you can hit a lot, which is basically all bosses except Shaper/Uber Elder, Rain of Arrows should be enough to keep you above 38 Virulence at all times (remember that the maximum is 40). However, I found while trying Uber Elder that my Virulence was often near 30/35 (trying to check my Virulence actually killed me a lot, hehe), so I started using Barrage linked with Poison, Lesser Poison (to reach 100% chance to poison) and Faster Attacks. It allows me to stay above 38 virulence, even against Uber Elder. However, I found Rain of Arrows to still be much more comfortable to use, so it's up to you!

Since you don't need to hit every single arrow of Barrage and still have high virulence, you can shoot from a safe distance, and it should still allow you to keep high virulence.

A last note: if you struggle to sustain virulence, you can swap out Temp Chains for Mirage Archer during tough bosses, it will make your life easier. Another possible replacement for Temporal Chains is Withering Touch, since a part of the Crawler's damage is converted from physical to chaos.

Before starting
There are some gems you'll need that aren't given as quest reward and can't be bought as Witch. Therefore, you will need to get the following gems before starting. For each gem, I noted where you can get it in the story and as which class, but remember that if you have a character that has access to act 6, you can buy all gems from Lilly at act 6 after clearing the Twilight Strand, as well as in act 10, or after completing Siosa's quest in act 3.

If you're starting the league with this character and don't have access to these, you have two options: you can level up with your prefered minion skill (zombies + skeletons/raging spirits), or you can try to ask in global if someone with the right class can buy those gems for you. People are usually nice and very helpful, but do as you prefer :)




Gems & key gear

You can start leveling by using minions, starting with zombies at lvl 2. Then, when you get raging spirits (after the Mud Flats), you can actively summon those while your zombies take the damage for you, as well as skeletons if you prefer (after killing Brutus).

At level 16, you can equip Herald of Agony! You can equip your Quill Rain to use Rain of Arrows + Lesser Poison as well as your Herald of Agony + Pierce (+ Minion Damage/Minion Speed/etc.). The agony crawler will carry you all the way to the end game. At level 24, remember to grab Discipline.

As for curses, the order of priority is Projectile Weakness > Enfeeble > Temporal Chains. Projectile Weakness removes the need for a Pierce support gem, freeing a socket. To apply your curses, you can:
- Curse on hit with Rain of Arrows if you have the sockets (the priority is Rain of Arrows > Lesser poison/poison > Curse on hit > Curse gems).
- Self cast them if you don't.


Skill tree

Start by grabbing Lord of the Dead (minion damage and life) and Arcane Focus (ES & ES recharge rate) just next to the start of the Witch tree. Then, go the right side, then down to the start of the Scion, and grab Foresight. You can then grab Gravepact, to the left, and go up to Spiritual Command.

(If you want more early minion damage and less ES, you can skip the part about going near the Scion start and go straight left from Occultist's Dominion and refund the points later)

Then, go up near Avatar of Fire (don't take it! Just go near it), then down toward Resolute Technique. Now you won't ever miss your shots! That means more poison, so more virulence. If you feel like you miss too often while leveling before Resolute Technique, you can use an Additional Accuracy support gem on Rain of Arrows.

After that, go up and grab Whispers of Doom, allowing you to apply two curses (you should hit that point a bit after you get the curse gems). You can then curse enemies with two curses, which should be enough. (If one curse is enough for you, you can grab it later). Then go left toward Redemption and Spiritual Aid. If your zombies die too often, you can grab Sacrifice or Righteous Army and refund it later. The rest is pretty much completing the skill tree according to your own preference.


Life or Energy Shield?

It's up to you! Although I really really recommend starting out with Energy Shield, you can get a lot of effective HP really fast. But I'm just a guide, not a cop, so here are the recommendations for each version:

* Does the "40% less damage" from the Quill Rain affect the Crawler's damage?

No, it doesn't, it only affects Rain of Arrows' damage, which doesn't matter at all.


* At what level should I take CI?

I would recommend taking CI once you have taken the two ES ascendancies, Wicked Ward and Vile Bastion. Once you have those, you will have enough ES to say goodbye to your HP!


* The Crawler is kind of slow, is there any way to make it faster ?

There is! The first option is to use Minion Speed support instead of Vicious Projectiles. Another way to do so is to use Essences of Fear on jewellery, which grants decent minion movement speed.


* Why are we not using other minions, like zombies or an animated guardian?

Long story short: they would die. Since the Crawler is invulnerable to damage, we don't take any minion life or minion life regen nodes, so other minions have no life increase or life regen, and it is (in my opinion) not worth investing in defensive minion nodes just to have zombies (with our defensive layers, we don't need any meatshield) or an animated guardian (the buffs from any item we can give him would not be worth the skill points).


* Why not use Darkscorn to get "25% less physical damage taken from hits" instead of Quill Rain?

First, because I'm not sure of how the virulence sustain would be without the Quill Rain. I'm going to try it out in standard, and update the guide accordingly. Second, Quill Rain gives mana gain on hit, so sustaining mana would be harder with another bow; however, this can be worked around by using a jewel with mana gain on hit, if you want to try it out.

Edit: I tried using Darkscorn, and it's very hard to sustain Virulence versus bosses. It can be an option in a situation where 1) You're not killing a boss, and 2) You take a lot of physical damage, like deep delving, but apart from these particular situations, I would stick with Quill Rain.


* Why are your Rain of Arrows and Poison support level 3?

Simply because I happened to have lvl 3 gems in my stash when building the character, but level on these two gems doen't matter. In fact, it's important to have a low level Rain of Arrows, because the lower the level, the lower the mana cost.

* Are there any flasks in particular I should be using?

You should have at least one anti-freeze flask ("of heat"), one anti-bleeding ("of staunching") and one anti-burning ("of dousing"), but apart from that, not really. You can use a stibnite flask for a bit of evasion and blinding nearby enemies, or a granite flask for a bit of armour. But it's up to your personal preference, there is no "best in slot" flask for this build.

I want to thank the following people who helped me with the build:

* El Pakito, whose constant feedback about the guide helped me refine it, and who helped me answer the questions in the thread. Thanks a lot for all you've done!
* ReanK, who theorycrafted a similar build and who helped refine this one.
* bhwung and bdy, who allowed me to add their Uber Elder videos to the guide.
* Xyrm, for recording several of the videos in this guide.
* gjmine09, who designed the crafting process for the best possible bow for this build.

Thank you very much for helping me out! <3

10/11/18: Updated the PoB with separate leveling skill trees.

19/11/18: Added a Low Life (LL) version (see the "Gear" section).

21/11/18: Updated the "Gear" section with trade site links.

26/11/18: Added the "Helmet Enchants" part of the "Gear" section.

02/12/18: Finished the complete writing of the guide.

05/12/18: Added a "Why Rain of Arrows?" section.

06/12/18: Added several videos recorded by Xyrm.

08/12/18: Updated the trade site links for the Betrayal league.

10/12/18: Added an "Ascendancies" section.

12/12/18: Added the Golden Rule jewel to the build. Thanks to Ashaze for the suggestion!

13/12/18: Added an FAQ section.

25/12/18: Added a part about crafting a high budget bow to the Gear section.